


Futile Devices

by giraffeontherocks



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giraffeontherocks/pseuds/giraffeontherocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are twenty four and too old for it; Nick feels out of place in his skin, a teenager and past his prime all at once. Luke confesses that he’s scared of dying. Nick tells him not to worry about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Futile Devices

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to everybody over at [tumblr](http://deerboots.tumblr.com) for their continued support of my writing, especially Charlie.

 

 

 

 

_**eleven.** _

 

To look at him tonight, in his old faded sweatshirt, in the half-light, is heart stopping; Nick swears he hears angels sing or some other horseshit.

His mom is out, Pete too, and his dad is god knows where, so it’s inevitable that Luke’s here. When Nick had called Luke up and said he was sick of his uncle trying to make him into more of a man, Luke had gone quiet for a moment, and then had told him he’d see him soon. Next thing he knew, Luke was at the door, flashing him a shit eating grin and hugging a case of beer to his chest.

“Hey,” he’d said. “Who’s up for a bit of _Driller Killer_?”

And that was that. Nick hadn’t the heart to refuse him.

Neither of them actually like horror movies all that much, especially shitty ones from the 70’s. All Nick knows is that it’s the type of film that focuses too much on the woman taking a shower and too little on the man drilling the brains out of his victims. Luke watches it, mostly. Nick watches him.

It’s hard not to, really. Luke is distracting in more ways than one, too close to him on the sofa. Every few minutes he lets out little disbelieving huffs of breath as the film gets more and more ludicrous, and he squirms a lot, too, arching his back or flexing his fingers or crossing and uncrossing his ankles.

It earns him an elbow to the ribs a couple of times, but he only stills for a minute before starting his shifting routine all over again, so Nick soon gives up. It’s easier to let him be.

“What I don’t get,” Luke says, and he tilts his head in the way Nick’s old dog used to, “is _why_ this guy is killin’ everyone.”

Nick lounges back and stretches out his legs. “What’s not to get? It’s a damn horror film.”

“It’s a damn shitty horror film. There’s no motive. There’s gotta be a motive for violence like that.”

“Maybe the guy’s just crazy,” Nick offers, but Luke looks unconvinced. They watch as the lead character gives some fist-clenching, grimacing moment of badly acted anger. “It _is_ pretty shitty, I’ll give you that one.”

Neither of them make any move to switch it off. Luke yawns so wide his teeth catch the glare of the TV screen. Nick’s not a great host – there are no snacks about, and he has no plans to offer any – but Luke looks content. His fingers are lax around his beer can.

Nick’s fingers are tense, his knuckles white, around his own. Outside, the cul-de-sac sleeps on; his neighbours are quiet for once and the quad bike obsessed kid across the street has left it in his garage.

They sit in silence for a while, watching as the killer stalks a homeless man down an alleyway, bloodied drill in hand. Luke is grimacing in anticipation but Nick’s just got his eyebrows raised.

“What I don’t _get_ ,” Luke says, looking away as the blood starts to pour, “is _why_ he’s killin’ the homeless. It’s not like he’s being careful with their bodies. He’s just killin’ for the sake of it, when there’s people he’s argued with, people you’d think he’d want to --”

The thin metal of the can buckles slightly and Nick slops foamy beer all over his lap. “Oh, fucking hell!”

“Sorry,” Luke says, but he’s laughing. “Was that my fault?”

Nick glares at him. He’s not sure how eyes can hold heat but Luke’s eyes are warm, a warmer colour than his dumb sweater, warmer even than his smile. The worst comes when he nudges Nick’s shoulder and laughs again, and Nick feels burned.

“Just get me another,” he says, roughly, and Luke heaves himself to his feet and through to the kitchen.

Nick closes his eyes and breathes in, breathes out, clenches his hands into fists and tries not to yell.

It’s not Luke’s fault that he’s so wound up. It’s not him who’s been pressing him into making something of himself, of getting a full time job in a job market that chews up kids with no college education and spits them right back out again. He’s worked part time for years, scraping by and paying his mom whatever rent he can and saving the rest of it carefully, but that’s clearly not grown up enough for his uncle.

 _Grow up_ , Pete’s started to say, _be a man_! _You’re twenty four, it’s time you moved out and stopped being such a momma’s boy_!

He’s not sure what would be enough, but he knows he’s nowhere near the ideal nephew. He’s so far from that ideal that it’s laughable. His uncle just doesn’t always like to see the funny side.

Nick’s fucking up enough these days to justify that, though. If he’s not getting clumsy, he’s getting lazy, and if he’s not getting lazy, he’s getting mean. It’s surprising his mom hasn’t kicked him out already.

If it weren’t for Luke having his back, well --

Nick sighs heavily, and rubs a hand over his face.

“Uh, hey, are you okay, man?”

His eyes fly open and he finds Luke standing in front of him, one hand on his hip and the other offering him a new can of beer.

Nick gives him an easy grin, or tries to. “Stop worrying, I’m cool. Just tired.”

Luke shrugs and hands the beer over. His fingers, damp with condensation from the can, brush against Nick’s.

“Thanks,” Nick says and Luke flashes him a smile that makes his stomach lurch. He looks back at the TV and tries to focus on the murder spree currently happening, but all he can think of is the space between them as Luke sits back down, crossing his legs underneath himself.

The rest of the film passes on with monotonous gore and blatant close-ups of women’s bodies, and by the end of it Luke is half-asleep and Nick is four cans into the case of beer. The room is too warm and far too dark, and the cotton of Luke’s sweatshirt is soft. Nick shouldn’t know that, really, but through the course of the film his arm has stretched right out across the back of the sofa and his fingers keep dusting Luke’s far shoulder.

It’s dumb and unintentional, but Luke doesn’t seem to mind. He’s got his head bowed and his eyes half closed.

It’s so rare to see him so relaxed that Nick takes a good, long while to take it all in. Luke’s always so damn active, so ready to get on to his next project or move on from his last setback, and he never takes much time to just sit there and enjoy himself, be it with crappy movies and beer, or with his family. He’s too much, sometimes, and if Nick weren’t so beaten down by his uncle right now he might feel brave enough to tell his best friend so.

He needs to cool it. He needs to relax, just as Nick needs to get himself in gear. If only they could swap mind sets, just for one fucking day.

As the credits start to roll, Luke wakes up. He shakes his head, stretches his arms, rolls his shoulders. Nick’s hand withdraws with lightning speed. He preoccupies himself with downing his beer, chugging every last drop just to keep his hands from shaking, or wandering, or both. Luke, though, doesn’t notice any of his hesitation. He never fucking does.

He just turns to look at Nick, a twinkle in his eye, and motions at the TV. “That was a piece of shit, wasn’t it? Sorry. My folks said it was sure to be a, uh, thrill or somethin’. Figure they watched it as teenagers and remember it scarier than it is. Next time you can pick.”

“Yeah, sure, you remember that when you’re complaining I ain’t picked something gritty enough for your sophisticated tastes.”

Luke laughs. Nick gives him half a smile, and for a beat he doesn’t feel like he’s being stupid. It feels like they’re young again, drunk for the first time and talking about the hottest girls at school. Even then, Nick knew he didn’t care much for them, the girls; they were nice and all, and he was always nice back to them, but his eyes weren’t drawn to the parts of them that everybody else stared at. It feels like the time they stole their parents’ whiskey and sat on a neighbour’s rooftop and watched the sun rise, talking over exams and the ugliest teachers and girls, always the girls and never the boys, and then Nick was sick over the roof slates and Luke was rubbing his back and saying _hey man, hey, try to be quiet, if we’re caught up here we’re dead_.

Now, though, now they’re nearing twenty five. Now, they’re supposed to be responsible adults. Now, Nick has to admit, not all that much has changed. He still sometimes steals his dad’s whiskey, and Luke still likes to look at the local girls, albeit the wild, grown up college graduates these days. Nick still doesn’t.

Luke stops laughing after a while, smile relaxing into something serious. His eyes are soft as they search Nick’s face. “Hey. Look, tell me if I’m being too nosy but – are you really okay? You’ve been actin’ weird all night. What happened with Pete?”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

“Is he really that bad? He always seems like a great guy to me.”

“I know, I know, you get on great. He’s told me enough times. _You_ don’t need to fucking start, okay?”

Luke raises his hands, relenting. “Woah, woah, man! I’m not. I’m just concerned. That’s all.”

“Yeah? Well I don’t need your fucking sympathy, okay? I’m fine, Pete’s fine, everything is goddamn fine.”

His hands are fists on his lap and the TV has gone to static, the faint buzz of it all that sounds out in the living room. The silence stretches on for miles outside. Luke’s got his brow all wrinkled like there’s a bad smell, and Nick can’t stop himself from biting the inside of his lip just to get himself to shut the fuck up. He reminds himself, again, none of this is Luke’s fault. He’s just being dramatic.

“I know you’re fine,” Luke says, after a moment. His voice is so careful, so soft. Nick swallows and glares at the floor. “I’m sorry. I just want you to know that you can, uh, you know. You can talk to me. I didn’t mean to suggest that you’re lying about Pete or anything. I’m sure he can be a real piece of work.”

He’s not, though, and they both know that. He’s stern and he’s tough but he’s a damn sight better than Nick’s father has been. Nick’s father is the type of guy who does make his life living hell whenever he bothers taking part in it. Pete can be too much, sometimes, but Pete is trying, but Nick is trying, too, and nothing he ever does seems to endear him in his uncle’s eyes.

Nick stands up and paces over to the window. Across the road, all the lights are on in the biker kid’s house, and the kid’s girlfriend is outside smoking. She’s thin and has big wide eyes that reflect the flickering streetlights, and huge curls of red hair hang frame her face. She’s just the type of girl Luke would dream about for months before moving swiftly onto another.

He closes the curtains.

“I’m sorry,” Luke says again from across the room. “Do you want me to go?”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Nick sighs. He unclenches his fists and takes a deep, gulping breath in attempt to pull himself together. When he turns away from the window, he finds Luke closer than he’d thought he’d be, and jumps. “Fuck. You maybe wanna warn me the next time you sneak up on me?”

Luke clears his throat and smiles just a little, just enough to make Nick look away. “Nah, not really. Where would the fun be in that?”

“Fucker,” Nick mutters, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward.

“Right back at you.” Luke’s smile is gone in a second, and he starts to rub at the back of his neck, suddenly nervous. “Look. Maybe now isn’t the right time to talk about this, but I- I didn’t just come here to watch dumb movies and piss you off.”

Nick raises his eyebrows. Luke’s not often nervous and never all that hesitant, but right now his blush creeps all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Spit it out, then, what’s the problem?”

“Look, it’s just- it’s just an idea, right now, but it could be something bigger. I couldn’t come to anyone else with it. Just, just sit down, okay, and I’ll talk you through it. It’s real good, you’re gonna love it, I promise.” He’s got his hand at Nick’s elbow before he can answer, guiding him over to the sofa. “You’re gonna love it.”

“You said that already.”

“Don’t be an asshole.” Luke practically shoves him down onto the sofa and then goes for his bag, pulling a worn journal from it. “Just let me show you.”

Nick settles into his seat. This situation isn’t exactly alien to him; Luke gets ideas all the time, always speeding from one half-completed project to the next and never accepting defeat. He thinks it might come from the fact that Luke’s parents are so old, almost elderly, and so set in their ways on the farm their family has owned for years and years.

Where Nick’s being pushed to make something more of himself, Luke’s parents have always wanted him to settle – find a nice girl to marry, maybe, and make a life for himself on the farm, safe and sure and secure. But Luke’s never wanted that. When they were kids, he and Nick used to climb rooftops just to be closer to the stars. They used to go to the sorts of bars that wouldn’t ID them, just to rebel. They used to plan out their lives in excruciatingly intricate detail, just to dream.

If they had followed those plans, they’d be world-famous by now, one way or another.

“Here, look, I drew- I drew some stuff out. Look through it, and --” Luke closes his eyes and seems to draw himself together, chest heaving beneath his stupid, soft sweater. He opens his eyes and takes a breath. “Nick, we’re burnin’ daylight. We’re wasting the prime of our lives living at home and not making anything of ourselves. You gotta join me in this, it could really make our lives somethin’ special. It could be the making of us.”

Nick takes the journal. Inside are landscapes and plans and birds-eye views of some sort of house. All over are scribbles in Luke’s somewhat eccentric handwriting, detailing contractors and finances and the names and numbers of plumbers, builders, plasterers. When Nick looks up from the pages, he looks at Luke, so nervous, so sure of his work, so unsure of his friend’s reaction.

“I--” Nick pauses, licks at his lips. “What is all this?”

“Real estate,” Luke says, enthusiastically. “Just hear me out. You’ll love it.”

Nick hears him out. He doesn’t love it, but one look at Luke’s hopeful smile and he’s saying, “Sure. Count me in.”

 

 

**_ten._ **

 

“This place is perfect!”

“This place is a goddamn shithole.”

Luke gives him a stung look that shuts him up, and then carries on waving his arms about at the staircase, telling the realtor just how much potential the place has. She’s nodding at him a bit _too_ enthusiastically, and completely ignoring Nick.

He stays out of their way as they parade through the house, planning and preening and laughing. It’s like watching love unfolding; Luke’s clearly fallen hard for the house, laughter lines fixed around his mouth, and the realtor has clearly fallen hard for the idea of getting rid of this eyesore to an overly optimistic first time home buyer. It’s been on the market for nearly two years already.

Nick’s got a bad feeling about the place, a bad, bad feeling. It lurks in the damp corners of the ceilings, in each rickety step that feels two footfalls away from falling through, in the upstairs bathroom that clearly hasn’t been cleaned since it was installed, sometime in the early 1990’s. It lurks deep down in Nick’s gut and keeps him on the side lines with his arms crossed, too unsure to try to put it all into words and break Luke’s heart with it.

“How about these high ceilings, huh?” the woman, Lisa or something, asks, glancing upward. “They give the rooms such a sense of space, don’t you think?

” “Yeah, they’re great,” Luke nods. His hands are on his hips and he’s examining the bedroom wall with his head to one side, eyes slightly narrowed. “I can just see all of this painted over. We’d get rid of this nasty wallpaper. Maybe we could even knock this wall right out, have a larger master bedroom.”

“Great!” Lisa says, fingers twitching around her clipboard. “Absolutely great.”

“What do you think?” Luke asks over his shoulder.

“Uh--” Nick wants to shrug, he really does, but he can’t be that cruel. He’s already said yes to this dumb plan and now is not the time to start backing out. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at the floor. “Yeah. Absolutely great.”

“Great,” Luke echoes, with a nod. He starts rambling so much so that even Lisa appears to lose interest. She’s tapping away at her phone as Luke talks about loft conversions and some guy they went to school with who says he’ll do the plumbing for cheap.

It reminds Nick that he’s never done a single piece of DIY in his life and he starts to squirm nervously again. Luke’s hardly handy around his parents’ farm, either. He can feed the cattle and clear out the stables, sure, but he’s probably never put up a shelf or plastered a wall.

He’s screwed. They’re both absolutely, fucking screwed.

“The sellers are keen to consider any offers you might want to make. The house has been on the market for a long time, but in the current market that’s hardly a surprise. I’d say it’s a great opportunity for newcomers such as yourselves to make a real good investment. With a bit and love and care, you could really make a home out of this place.”

Nick perks up at that, because Luke’s euphoria seems to be drying up slightly at the implication. “Uh, yeah,” Nick says, coldly. “We can really make a home out of this place and then sell it on to some lucky family.”

“Ah.” The woman’s smile thins. “Business men. I see. I didn’t know. I thought --”

“You really want to do this place up?” Luke interrupts her, eyebrows raised as he turns to look fully at Nick. He’s smiling again, too brightly. Nick winces. “You really think we can? God, I’m so glad.”

Lisa turns to look at him, too. He feels like there’s a goddamn spotlight on him and he flushes red in its beam. “I—yeah. Yeah, sure. I think we can. Of course we can, man. We got this.”

 _Screwed_ , he reminds himself, even as Luke’s shoulder’s straighten and his chest puffs out with relief. He looks so sure of himself and so sure of Nick, too. Nick keeps his mouth shut after that and tries to think of anything but the savings he’s going to be wasting on this place. It’s every cent he owns in the world.

It’s a little different for Luke, after all. His savings are from the death of some absent grandfather and as an only child, it all went straight into Luke’s bank account. Nick, though, Nick’s had to work for his and he feels the loss of it all the more as Luke’s eyes get wider and wider as they step from room to room. But all of that hard work is worth seeing the expression on Luke’s face as he turns to Nick at the end of the house tour and touches his wrist briefly with his fingertips.

Nick’s wrist burns at the touch. Lisa is busying herself with her phone and paperwork in the other room, giving them some space to talk.

“This is everything we hoped for, right? It’s cheap and sure, we’ve got a hell of a job in store doing it all up, but we can sell it for a great profit once it’s looking pretty and then-” He takes in a big, blissed-out breath. “We could be in this for the long run. We could make a real business out of this.”

Any truth he could say right now would shatter the dreams of his best friend, but any lies and he may as pile up what little money he has, douse it in gasoline and light a match. He hesitates, and Luke looks away, jaw clenched and clearly hurt.

“I- I need a smoke, just- I’ll be back in a moment. I’m sorry.”

Nick doesn’t look back as he heads downstairs and out of the back door that has mould spreading all over it.

The yard is small and square and full of junk and overgrown weeds. He pushes through the debris, scratching his arm in the process, until finally settling lean against the once white painted fence and light a smoke. Clearing this yard alone will take more effort than he feels willing to put into their new business venture.

The cigarette is harsh and good and as he blows great plumes of smoke into the sky, he wonders if Luke is watching him from the window. He daren’t look up to check. It doesn’t matter, anyway; Luke’s going to know exactly what he’s doing. He probably has Nick’s sour expression completely memorised.

Somewhere in the distance a dog is barking. Nick takes a long drag. For a moment, he considers calling Pete. His uncle is always full of advice, asked for or not, and he’d know what to do right now. He always liked Luke but that doesn’t mean he’s going to automatically agree that this is anything close to a good idea. He could talk Nick out of throwing away all of his money, and maybe talk some sense into Luke, too.

But Nick doesn’t call him. He can’t, not when he’s making such a point of standing against him. To let Pete make this decision for him would be giving in and accepting that maybe all of his views on masculinity and the ways of the world are right, and that Nick is wrong.

His hand hovers near his pocket, near his cell phone. Maybe just a quick call, maybe just one question. Just to see if his gut instinct is right.

“Nick, you out here?” comes a call from the back door, and Nick forgets about his uncle.

Luke emerges from the house, squinting in the sunlight, hair golden with it. The cigarette burns away between Nick’s fingers, forgotten as he watches Luke tread the same dangerous path he just has through the yard.

“Nick, hey,” Luke says, when he finally reaches him. He’s looking kind of sheepish. “I’m- I just wanted to talk to you. I feel like an asshole.”

“Why? You’ve not done anything wrong.”

“I didn’t mean to fall in love with this place. We got a list of places to visit and there are loads of cheaper houses on for sale, and a few expensive ones that don’t need all this work. We have a week of appointments, I know, but --” Luke sighs. His whole body is always so alive with his words, so emphatic, and when his shoulders slump in defeat it’s a sight to see. “I’m sorry. I just feel like this place is exactly what we need. It has so much potential. I really think this is it.”

They don’t, of course, need any property at all. Nick doesn’t remind him of that, but they’ve not signed a single thing or agreed any loan with the bank yet, and they definitely haven’t started employing old school friends to plaster or plumb or knock down walls just yet. This is still just a dream. Nick could still make his best friend wake up from it.

“We _could_ do a lot with it,” Nick admits. He throws the cigarette to the ground and stamps on it. “We could also stick to the plan and look at the rest of them before we start making any big decisions.”

“What if somebody buys this place before we put an offer in? If we lose the chance to buy because we’re too busy wasting our time, this whole thing could be over.” Luke crosses his arms, defiantly, but he looks more patient than anything. That makes Nick even more annoyed. “Look, I’m not trying to push you into saying yes, but --”

The truth of it, the awful truth, is that Nick would want to say no regardless of how perfect the house is. It’s a lot of risk and a lot of work and his heart isn’t in it, and Luke can’t have enough drive for the both of them. But he can’t just say no to every single house and try to call this off. He’s already said yes and Luke is already so excited.

Nick reaches out to grab Luke’s shoulder, shaking it a little. “You’re _sure_?” he asks, looking him right in the eye. “I’ll go for this if you’re sure. I’ll throw my money in too. But, I just- I only wanna invest in something that you’re truly, one hundred percent confident about. I don’t want us to get fucked over on the first house we even look at.”

“I know, and that’s sensible,” Luke says. He licks nervously at his lower lip. “I’m sure though, Nick. I promise I am. I wouldn’t get us into something that’s gonna fuck us over. I promise.”

Luke’s promises, in the past, have got Nick fucked over more than a few times. Once, he promised that climbing the tallest tree in the neighbourhood was a great idea, and Nick got his arm broken. Or there was the time that Luke promised him he’d keep in when his parents took him away to his aunt’s all of August, and instead he fell in love with his cousin’s friend and text him twice the whole month. There was the time that Luke --

Luke moves around him. His hands smooth up his back until they reach his shoulders, and then his fingers dig in, turning him to face the house. “Look at it,” he whispers, and if Nick shivers when Luke’s breath hits his ear, he can blame the winter wind. “I know it looks bad now, but imagine what it could be. Every room could be transformed. We could paint the outside a real nice white. We could landscape this whole yard. Imagine how it’ll look this time next year when we’re stood here.”

Nick imagines it. It’s easy to. It’s also easy to imagine the hours of labour they’re going to put into it, and how much money they’re realistically going to need to do it up, not to mention how much profit they’ll have to make to cover that when they’re selling. The bank has agreed to lend them almost the entire price of the house, but once they’ve signed the realtor’s papers and invested their savings, all of their money will be in this solitary, shitty little house in the suburbs of some nowhere town of North Carolina. They will be thousands of thousands of tens of thousands in debt, and dirt broke, and _screwed_.

“What do you think?” Luke asks, quietly. “I would never go ahead with this without you, you know that, right?”

Nick sighs and turns to look at him. “I know that. I’m with you.”

Luke smiles. The yard seems to shrink around them.

 

 

**_nine._ **

 

They went to school with Michael O’Farrell and Nick never liked him. When it turns out that his plumbing skills leave a lot of to be desired and they’re bound to be faced with burst pipes all over the damn house, Nick tries not to feel smug about it. O’Farrell had charged them a fortune, too, but Nick’s damned if he’s letting the weasel get a single dime.

Luke gathers rags and a bucket and some book that his father loaned him that details pipes and access panels and backflow and stuff that Nick’s never even heard of before. Judging by Luke’s expression as he flicks through it, he’s guesses he’s not the only one.

“Spread these towels out, would you?” he snaps when Nick says as much. “At least try to help.”

Nick sighs and kicks at Luke’s thigh as he passes. He’s knelt next to the pipe and pushing handfuls of cotton against the spurting water as though that’ll somehow make it stop. The book lies next to him, slowly getting soaked. Nick doesn’t even try to rescue it.

He spreads the towels out all over the floor and mourns them, briefly; they’re good ones, thick and soft and now ruined forever. O’Farrell is a goddamn dick.

“Um. You want me to call someone? Maybe your dad could come and take a look at --”

“I got it,” Luke says, through gritted teeth. “It’s just one pipe. It’s under control.”

Nick bites his tongue from pointing out the obvious; Luke’s got nothing under control right now, let alone the water that’s spraying through his fingers and dousing his hair. He can’t stop himself from laughing, though, as a big bead of water drips down Luke’s nose and he goes cross-eyed trying to look at it.

“Jesus Christ, move out the way and go switch the water off,” Nick says, as Luke musters the dirtiest glare he can while sopping wet. “I’ll try to stop this place getting any more flooded.”

He kneels down next to Luke by the kitchen sink and presses his hands up against the sodden rags. Luke’s fingers are slippery underneath his and they move, sliding slowly away, leaving Nick to cover up the leak the best he can. Luke glowers at the pipe and then claps a hand to Nick’s shoulder.

“Thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I switch this shit off.”

Nick nods, and Luke disappears. It’s a good job he dressed in his scruffiest clothes today. He knew that they’d be emptying out the attic, full of dust and god knows what else, but he had no idea they’d walk into the kitchen that morning to find water spreading all across the mildewed tiled floor.

Yesterday, they discovered damp so bad it stank out the smallest bedroom. The day before that they found a rat infestation in the shed at the bottom of the yard. It’s just one disaster after another with this place, and three weeks in it’s starting to settle on Nick’s shoulders, threatening to break his back entirely.

He hears Luke yell something and then the water stops. Nick lowers his hands from the pipe cautiously. Knowing how this day is going, it’s probably going to switch back on any second and cover him from head to toe with tepid water. His hands are dripping and he tosses the rags into the bucket.

The whole floor might have to come up now. He tries hard not to think of how much that will cost.

When Luke returns he’s mellowed a little, but he still looks pretty pissed. He sees Nick surveying the damage and comes to his side, hands materialising to his hips. Before now, the kitchen was perhaps the easiest of the rooms to plan out. A new counter and new appliances were needed, sure, but the plumbing seemed pretty fixable and the floor just needed a good clean.

“Fuckin’ O’Farrell,” Luke mutters with a shake of his head. “If he thinks he’s getting paid after this, he’s got another thing comin’.

“I told you he was no good. I said right from the start that --”

“I know what you said, Nick. You don’t need to remind me.”

Luke doesn’t look at him, but starts trying to soak up the water with the towels, fruitlessly. They’re almost fully submerged when he presses them to the floor. The plumbing book is totally wrecked by now.

“Any idea how to fix it?” Nick asks. He’s being a little shit and he knows that; Luke clearly has no clue, or he would have gone for the pipe straight away instead of the mopping up.

Luke pauses with his mopping, going totally still as he glares at the floor. One big, steady breath through his nose later and he’s looking up at Nick with a face of fury. “Maybe you could help me with this instead of making funny comments. Maybe that would stop me kicking your ass.”

It’s an empty threat. Nick gets back down on his knees anyway, and when he chances a glance sideways, Luke is grinning a little. He once told Nick that he can never stay mad at him, and Nick’s glad he hasn’t pushed him too far just yet.

“We might have to call my dad,” Luke admits, after a couple of minutes of hard work, silent but for Nick’s muttering as his jeans start to stick wetly to his legs. “I mean, we can dry this the best we can but- I haven’t got the first clue how to fix that thing, and unless you’ve got some hidden talents I don’t reckon you do, either.”

“We could just look it up,” Nick says, wringing his cloth over the bucket. “I’m sure there’s gonna be like, step by step instructions online. We’re not idiots. We could follow them.”

Luke pushes his hair back from his forehead with a damp hand, leaving his forehead sheening. He looks physically pained. “No. No, I think- shit, we’re gonna have to call him in. Either of us tries to work on that and we’ll probably break it beyond repair.”

“There are other plumbers than O’Farrell in this town, you know. We could just call one of them. We don’t have to call your dad if you don’t want.”

Luke grimaces. “And have them charge us a goddamn fortune? We can’t afford to go throwin’ money away like that.”

Money. Of course. It’s the reason they couldn’t call in a real professional in the first place and had to rely on old favours that only threw themselves back in their faces. It’s also the reason that Nick has to keep working in the local hardware store every Saturday while working on this place every other day of the week, just to make sure he can help his mom with her rent and grocery bills.

He can’t begrudge Luke getting pissed that he’s going to have to call his dad in to help, though. Even when they’ve been desperate he wouldn’t even consider getting Pete to bail them out.

“Maybe we could take another look at the budget and cut down on the wallpaper bill or something. Maybe we could just paint every room white.”

“That won’t save us much,” Luke says, but he nods anyway. “We should take another look at everything, see what else we save on. Maybe we don’t need to put so much work into spare bedroom.”

With that, Luke is dreaming again. It’s what he lives for these days, planning their hours in too much detail and trying not to get cross when things don’t go quite how he wants them to. Nick does the best he can with it all, but he’s never been punctual at the best of times, and every day he drives round to this place he gets more and more nervous considering if they’ve done the right thing here

. The cracks haven’t started to show on Luke. Nick, though, feels like shattered glass.

The radio in the corner blares out some R.E.M. and Luke starts to whistle. One nudge in the right direction and he’s bouncing right back from his frustration, leaving Nick to choke on dust in his wake.

He clears his throat. Tonight, he is going to go home and lock himself in his room and get drunk, all alone. Too much time in this house, with nobody but the chipper Luke for company, is starting to get to him. He has never been built for anything than seclusion and sourness. He’s not all that sure how Luke even puts up with him, but tonight he won’t have to worry about that, all alone and out of his head.

After almost an hour, the floor is dry enough not to worry about the water becoming tepid, and it’s the midday sun is hanging high in the sky. Luke stands up and stretches. Nick looks away from the sliver of belly revealed as his sweater rides up, and instead focuses on the wet patches on the knees of Luke’s jeans.

“I better stop stallin’ and give him a call,” Luke says, and gives the wet book a withering look. “Let’s just hope he’s not mad about that.”

“We’ll buy him a new one,” Nick says, and Luke looks briefly pained at the mention of money, before padding out of the room to go and find his cell phone. He drips all the way. Nick throws the book in the bucket for good measure.

When he stands up and echoes Luke’s movements, stretching tall and reaching for the ceiling, his bones crack loudly. A patch of sunlight fights through the dirty window and catches him in the eye and he stands stunned by it for a moment, raising a hand to block it. It reminds him that when all of this fixing and building and patching up is over, they still have to clean the house from top to bottom. And then decorate. And then maybe even sparsely furnish.

He reaches for his cigarettes and heads out to the yard.

On the way, he passes Luke, on the phone, who gives him half a grin and shakes his head. “Yeah, I know you’re not a plumber dad, I know you- yeah, I get that, but I thought you’d know how to fix it so we don’t have to get anyone in – no, we weren’t, it just burst out of nowhere – _yes_ , we switched the water off – do you think- okay, okay, thanks --”

Nick goes out of the back door. He shuts it on Luke’s voice, lights up, and sighs out smoke.

 

 

**_eight._ **

 

It’s a Sunday sometime in February that Nick gets a phone call from his father.

It’s been a hell of a day already. Nick tried to do some much needed plastering in the upstairs bathroom and ended up knocking a huge hole in the wall. Luke had run upstairs at the noise, wide-eyed, and then had gotten all silent and annoyed when he noticed the damage.

Well, that was that for Nick, who’d spent too long doing everything wrong when it came to building and painting and fixing things, and he’d gotten mad, real mad. Luke had flinched when the yelling began, but soon he’d got defiant; he’d crossed his arms and told Nick he was being nothing but a baby, and he’d hoped he would have fixed his goddamn temper by now.

That, of course, had just made Nick furious, and he’d thrown his tools down and stormed right of the house, only relaxing when he was finally at his mom’s house with a cool beer in his hand.

So, of course, that is when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket and the voice he hears on the other end is the one he wants to hear the least.

“Nick!” his dad says, over considerable background noise of conversation and clinking glasses. “Nick, what are you playing at, boy?”

Nick’s fingers slip around his beer and it nearly pours all over the kitchen floor. “Um. What, uh, what do you mean? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Some bar,” comes the reply. Nick can just imagine his dad’s dismissive shrug, his indifferent scowl. “That’s not the fucking point. I spoke to your mom earlier and she told me about you buying a house with that little shit Luke. What the fuck?”

It’s been so long since he heard anybody say something like that about Luke that it brings him back to being barely seven years old, when they first moved from Ohio to North Carolina, and his dad told him that kid he immediately befriended was no good. He said he didn’t trust farm folk and that he should stay away from him, or have his dad to answer to. He ignored him, of course, but neither of them have ever forgot those first impressions.

When his dad started to disappear more and more, it was Luke who told him he was worth so much more than what his father had done, who had given him half of his lunch on days when Nick’s mom didn’t have much to pack for him, who had held him after his dad was a no-show at his graduation ceremony. He doesn’t want to hear a word against him, not from this man.

“He’s not a little shit,” Nick says, his voice a warning, “and I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“None of my business? You’re my fucking son, ain’t you?”

Nick’s fingers tighten around his phone. His silence is surely answer enough. He hears his dad sigh and can imagine the smell of stale cigarettes.

“Well, listen to some fatherly advice, okay? Just make an easy life for yourself. Stop trying to prove stuff to people, and have an easy life. As if you know the first thing about fucking real estate. Now I don’t know if it’s your damn uncle pushing you or what, but get out while you can. Stop punching above your weight.”

It’s sound advice. Nick hates to admit it, but it is. He’s thought as much himself over the past few months and though he’s in far too deep to just get out now, his dad is right. He _is_ punching above his weight. This is too much work for him. He’s not built for it, not like Luke is.

But to hear his dad say it in his slightly slurred, whiskey-thickened voice is enough to bring his resolve the other way.

Once, maybe, Nick would’ve fought to follow his father’s words of wisdom and make him proud. Now, he wants nothing less.

“Fuck you,” he says, “fuck you, and fuck your shitty advice. When was the last time you cared enough to call me before?”

His dad lets out a little outraged splutter at Nick’s cursing and Nick feels nothing but satisfaction at the sound. “You can’t talk to your father like that, boy.”

“Father?” Nick laughs bitterly. He takes a long swig of beer and when he sets the glass down, he’s filled with some strange, soft sort of loyalty to Pete, though he’d never dare admit it to the man himself. “You’re not my father. You’re just some guy.”

“Just some guy? I raised you, I--”

“You tried, until we moved out here and you fucked off good and proper. Mom is the one who raised me. She did everything. Hell, Pete’s done more than you ever did. I don’t owe you any sort of respect, and I definitely don’t need your goddamn advice about what I should do with my life.”

There’s a muffled sound on the line, as though his dad has almost dropped the phone. Some of the men at the bar are whooping and catcalling, and Nick wonders what sort of dive he’s calling from. There are probably scantily clad women giving men lap dances for shitty pay. He’s sure his dad has sampled them all.

He hears the front door open and ignores it. His palms are all clammy and his clothes feel too tight. He’s flushed with the truth he’s finally admitting the one man it probably matters to the least.

“You piece of shit,” comes the shocked reply, “you just wait until I get home and I get my hands on --”

“Yeah, like you’re coming back anytime soon,” Nick laughs. “I’d appreciate it if you don’t call me again, or mom. We don’t need to hear your bullshit.”

His dad starts to protest, but Nick hangs up. It feels good to do it.

He reaches for his beer, grinning to himself. It feels like a great big weight has evaporated from his shoulders and he stands talls in the wake of it’s absence. Pete comes into the kitchen, brow furrowed, and eyes the cell phone Nick’s still holding.

“Who were you talkin’ to like that? I hope you and Luke haven’t had a fight.”

They have, strictly speaking, but Nick doesn’t want to go into it. Instead he shrugs, looking at the far wall rather than his uncle’s suspicious expression. “It wasn’t Luke.”

“No?” Pete goes to the fridge and gets himself a beer. He gives Nick a sidelong glance. “Who else you been pissin’ off?”

Nick starts to regret ever defending Pete to his dad. He ignores his jibe and pushes his cap further down, turning to the counter do something – anything – with his hands that isn’t punching his uncle. He settles on spinning his beer bottle uselessly, rolling it between his fingers.

“I asked you a question,” Pete says. Nick grits his teeth. “Who are you arguing with and who’s been calling your mom?”

Nick slams a fist onto the counter, and Pete jumps. “Does it matter? It was a private phone call.”

“If it was so private you should’ve kept your voice down, son,” Pete says. He lets out a heaving sigh, and Nick lifts his head to glare at him.

“It was my dad, alright? My waste of space, absent fucking father, and if you’re gonna gloat about me being irrational or something, just save it. I’m not in the mood.”

Pete’s eyes go wide and for a moment he looks genuinely sorry, fingers twitching as though he’s going to go in for a hug or something equally dumb. “Nick,” he says, slowly, “I didn’t know. I assumed it was --”

“Luke, right, of course” Nick says, and downs the last of his beer. He slams it down on the counter a little harder than strictly necessary. “Just leave it. I don’t wanna talk about it, least of all with you.”

He leaves Pete to his drinking and heads right out of the house. He gets into his car and drives, just drives, trying to escape his head and the thought of his father in some bar three cities over, probably still cursing down the pay phone at him. If he does make it home, there may be hell to pay for Nick’s words, but Nick doesn’t really mind.

It’s his mom he worries about, so thin and pale and long-suffering. She was never happy when his dad was around, but now he’s made a habit of disappearing for months, she seems even worse. She’s been losing her temper almost as much as Nick has.

The skies are darkening as he makes his way around through the small town, past the spot he had his first, vastly unpleasant kiss with a girl, past the school he hated, past the small dirt track that leads down to Luke’s parents’ farm.

The thought of going there to see Luke and put up with his often hostile father is not something he’s particularly in the mood for. Instead, he- well. He thinks of the house they’ve been doing up and suddenly the keys for it burn in his pocket, and he thinks that maybe he’ll get back to that plastering he abandoned earlier.

Maybe he can even patch over the hole he somehow knocked into the wall, and then when Luke heads over in the morning and finds it all fixed and looking good, he might smile brilliantly at him and they can make pancakes on the new stove they’ve just bought. It would be the first meal cooked in the house since they bought it. It would be something good, and something is good is what they both need right now.

When he gets to the house, he finds Luke’s car still outside, damp from the light rain. He frowns and checks the time. It’s nearing half ten, and Luke’s usually at home by now, full of his mother’s occasionally burnt cooking. All of the windows are dark.

Nick feels uneasy, even as he unlocks the door and heads inside.

“Luke?” he whispers, stupidly, into the pitch black hallway. “Luke, you here?”

There is, predictably, no reply. He starts a slow search from room to room, each in different states of repair. Most of them are beginning to take shape, but some of them still need weeks, months even, of hard work and money to be presentable.

He gets upstairs and looks around, and he’s about to give up entirely when he notices the bathroom door is slightly ajar. It’s the scene of their earlier argument and he hesitates before heading in, flicking on the flight as he does so.

Luke’s fast asleep, resting against the sink in a way that’ll surely give him neck ache in the morning. The hole in the wall by the shower is freshly plastered over and there’s plaster all over Luke’s fingers, too, and Nick feels like absolute shit. He should’ve cleaned up his own mess instead of getting mad and blowing up. He should’ve tried, at least for Luke.

He kneels by Luke’s side and reaches for his shoulder. “Come on, man,” he murmurs, shaking him. “You’d sleep better in an actual bed.”

Luke starts to stir. He yawns, wide, and then blinks blearily at Luke. He gives him a soft, sleepy smile. “Oh. Hey. You’re back.”

“Sure am,” Nick says, and withdraws his hand. “What are you doing here, man? It’s a little late to be working.”

“Mm. I guess it is. I got a bit carried away after you left. I thought if I fixed that hole and plastered that whole wall, you might come back tomorrow and be in a good mood. I thought maybe it’d help you, like, enjoy workin’ here again. You’ve been so --” He cuts off his sleep-slurred rambling with another yawn. “Sorry. I-I just don’t want you to lose interest in this place.”

Nick never had interest in the first place. He doesn’t say that. Instead, he gives Luke a grin and shakes his head. “Look, I shouldn’t have gone off like that. I should’ve cleaned all this up. Thanks for doing it, though, I appreciate it.”

Luke nods and slowly gets to his feet, using the basin for support. He rolls his shoulders, rubbing at his neck. “Why are you back here, anyway?”

“Same reason,” Nick admits. He looks sheepishly at the wall. “I thought maybe if I sorted that all out before you got here tomorrow you’d forgive me for being an asshole.”

“I forgive you,” Luke laughs. His laugh is deeper than usual and it warms Nick right up. Luke looks at him, at his smile, and must sense something is wrong with it, but keeps silent. “Hey, you wanna go get a beer or somethin’? It’d be nice to go out somewhere that’s not the farm or here.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, “that’d be real nice.”

Luke looks at him for a long time. Nick tries to keep his gaze but breaks it, eventually, to stare sullenly at the floor. Luke sighs. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Really. Don’t worry.”

“I do worry, though,” Luke says. Sleepiness long gone, he reaches out and cups Nick’s jaw, just firmly enough to pull his chin upward so their eyes meet again. “Talk to me. What’s happened?”

Nick swallows. “I just went home, that’s all.”

“Ah.” Luke looks sympathetic. “Pete again?”

“No. Well, kind of, but- no. Not Pete this time.”

“Your mom?”

“No.”

Luke narrows his eyes and his fingers tense. “Your dad?”

“You got it.” Nick pulls away from Luke’s now iron-grip and readjusts his cap. “Look, I appreciate your concern, I do, but it was nothing. My mom must have told him what we’re doing with this place and he called up to tell me I was, I dunno, making some big mistake and I shouldn’t go into business with you.”

Luke’s eyes go wide and hurt, and Nick rushes to add, “But I told him to fuck right off. He has no say in what I do.”

“Oh.” A slow grin comes across Luke’s face and he claps Nick on the shoulder. “I’m sorry your dad’s being an asshole, but, I gotta say, I’m real glad you’re not leaving me to finish this up on my own. I know things have been stressful but I really think this is workin’ out for us. I see a real future in it.”

Nick still doesn’t, but he smiles and ducks his head anyway, and it’s not until they’re out in the fresh air that he feels he can breathe again.

 

 

**_seven._ **

 

Summer comes and the world surprises him. They get help with the yard.

His mom and Pete come, and Luke’s parents and a couple of his cousins. Nick’s dad hasn’t been home in six weeks and though his absence looms over them, over his mom especially, nobody mentions or misses him. Nick certainly doesn’t.

They all take up different tasks, and Nick is charged with wheeling out the weeds and crap that everyone’s gathered around the side of the house and into the dumpster they’ve rented on the street outside. It’s not too bad a job, seeing as he only really has move the wheelbarrow as he pushes and lifts it, and doesn’t have to get stung by any nettles or get dirty from any of the abandoned junk.

Mostly, he watches the others work and waits for the barrow to be full. It’s a nice day and he’s just wearing an old tank top and shorts. For the first time since they got this place, he feels kind of content; with the sun beating down and the lemonade sweet on the table, and others mucking in to make a real day out of this job, it’s calming. It feels like they’re not completely on their own.

Luke is in his element. He’s not really achieving much, per se, but he’s helping others to by directing people’s lifting and writing out a brief timetable to let everybody know what job they should be on and when. Nick’s mom keeps laughing at him and calling him a sweetie, and even Luke’s cankerous father have cracked a couple of smiles at his upbeat attitude.

Pete dumps a pair of old, worn sneakers and a couple of split trash bags into the barrow. Nick waits to be told to get a move on or to work harder, but this time, it doesn’t come. He just gives Nick a small nod and gets back to it.

Nick smiles after him, and gets back to it, too. He takes the full barrow round out to the street and lifts it to throw all of the trash into the dumpster. The thing cost them an arm and a leg, but at least they don’t have to dispose of all this shit themselves.

Across the street, an elderly woman is getting her mail. She waves at Nick, who waves back. He’s glad the neighbours don’t all hate the fact they’re making so much noise with their renovations. In fact, most of them have been pretty supportive of what they’re trying to do. At least they picked a nice street, even if the house itself was barely together at the seams at first.

It’s starting to take shape, though, Nick has to admit as he goes back to the yard for his next load. Outside, it looks the same, but inside they’re really getting somewhere. All of huge tasks have been done – the water is now flowing right, at last, and the plastering is fine, and the attic is mostly clear. Once they’ve finished with the yard, they can get to cleaning the place out totally, and then decorating. That, he hopes, will be the easy part.

Then, they need to find a buyer who is willing to make them a profit, but he doesn’t worry about that just now.

When he returns, a couple of Luke’s younger cousins are having an argument. He shakes his head and takes his cap off, wipes his forehead with his forearm, and jams it back on his head.

Nick’s mom comes to stand by him after an armful of bramble into the barrow. She’s wearing thick green gardening gloves and her cheeks are pink from all of her hard work, almost pinker than the lipstick she’s wearing. They stand in a companionable silence for good, long while, watching Luke berate his kid cousin for throwing dirt at her older sister.

“I’m real glad you two bought this place,” his mom says, and he starts. “You’ve really both surprised me. I thought you would’ve given up on it by now.”

“Luke’s never gonna let that happen.”

“True,” she admits, “but it’s more than that. I think this place is really good for you. It’s nice to see you smile.”

Nick shifts uncomfortably, but he starts to grin, regardless. “It’s nice to see you smile, too, mom.”

It sounds soppy and ridiculous, but it’s true. He’s missed her smile. It used to come so easily when he was a kid. Now, it’s a rare sight, and one he treasures all the more for it. She rolls her eyes and swats him on the arm, leaving an imprint of dirt.

“Don’t get cheeky,” she says, but she’s smiling wide as she says it. “I mean it, though. When you’re done with this place, it’ll be a pity to sell it.”

“What else are we gonna do? Rent it out?”

“Live in it,” she says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “You’re still living at home and while I love you, you know you’ve got to move out sometime. Luke’s still on the farm and I’m sure Roy and Jean are getting pretty sick of supporting him all the time. Why not? You’re best friends and I’m sure being housemates will be fun for you.”

“Luke and I aren’t gonna live together,” Nick interrupts her, watching Luke doing some weeding, eyes fixed on the t-shirt that sticks to him. “I- look, it’s a nice idea, but that’s not the plan. That would defeat the whole purpose of putting our money into this place. We’re trying to make a business out of this.”

“No need to get defensive, it’s just a suggestion,” she says, in her sharp way that Nick’s taken to copying. “Anyway, I better get back to work. Just, you know, think about it. I’d like to see you really happy and this place, and Luke, seem to make that happen.”

He watches her get back to work with a frown. He’s not sure why she thinks he’s happy here. Sure, there have been some good times, especially recently, but for the most part it’s been one hell after another.

Luke, in the corner of the yard with a twig poking from his hair, meets his eye and gives him a beam that radiates across the mess between them. Nick can’t help but grin in return. Maybe it hasn’t been all hell, then.

In fact, if Nick were to be totally honest with himself, well, today has been kind of … fun. Sure, it’s mostly because he doesn’t have to do much heavy lifting and he’s getting to watch everyone else struggle for a change, but it’s been a nice so far. Even Luke’s cousins running around and getting in everyone’s way is more funny than annoying, and every time he glances at Luke it’s to find him smiling from ear to ear

. Even his uncle is in a good mood, and that’s saying something.

Nick takes the next load round the dumpster, and the next, and by the third trip Luke’s stopped bossing everyone around and has come to hover by the back door, overseeing everything from Nick’s spot. He helps Nick bring the barrow round and then rests against the wall of the house, just watching.

“You alright?” Nick asks, going for some lemonade.

“I’m great,” Luke says, “real great. I can’t believe how hard everyone’s workin’. At this rate we’ll be done in a couple of days, easy.”

For once, Nick doesn’t disagree. He crosses his arms and watches as Pete helps Luke’s mom with a particularly bad patch of thorns. “Yeah,” he say, with a smile, “yeah, I really we can be.”

Luke rocks back on his heels, hands in his pockets. There’s a certain smugness in his movements that would infuriate Nick if it were anyone else; as it is, he burns with it instead, and finds himself feeling pretty smug, too. This is all their doing and planning. Maybe – maybe – this will work. Maybe they will make a good business out of this.

It’s the first time Nick has ever thought so, and he finds himself laughing with the realisation. Luke raises an eyebrow at him.

“Uh, you okay, man?”

“I’m good. I’m great. I’m just- just happy, that’s all. I’m--” He’s not used to being so optimistic and he falters in voicing it, licking at his lips. The sun has dazed him. “I guess I’ve just got a good feeling about where we’re going with this.”

Luke looks him strangely and Nick’s about to take it all back, every word, before Luke’s got his fingers fisted in Nick’s t-shirt and he’s pulling him into a hug. It’s only brief but it’s enough to make his whole body tingle. When Luke pulls back, they’re both a little breathless and they’re smiling at each other, stupidly, until Luke’s dad shouts something about them dawdling while everyone else works, and they fall back to earth.

“Sorry!” Luke calls, but he doesn’t look it. He nudges Nick’s ribs with his elbows and adds, quietly, “If you want somethin’ a little stronger, there’s some whiskey in the cupboard near the kitchen sink. I bought it to celebrate your birthday next week, but you may as well crack it open when everyone else has gone.”

“Yeah?” Nick asks. He licks his lips. “I thought you hated it when I drank alone.”

It’s an invitation, a tease; Luke must clearly want to drink it with him and Nick knows he only needs to ask. Luke laughs. “Naw, this time I’ll make an allowance. You’ve been workin’ hard watchin’ everyone else work today.”

“Fuck you,” Nick says, but it’s quiet so that his mom can’t hear, and he’s smiling toothily. His face is starting to hurt from it. “Anyway, it sounds nice. Thanks. I look forward to it.”

“Well, enjoy yourself, because I sure will be,” Luke says, and he stands up a little straighter, chest puffing out just enough to be noticeable. “You remember Alice from school? We started chattin’ again recently and I’m takin’ her out tonight to the pictures.”

The smile slips right off Nick’s face and he swears the damn sun clouds right over. “Oh,” he says, and his voice snags something terrible. He does remember Alice, all blonde curky hair and sweet blue eyes, and he definitely remembers how Luke used to stare at her across the classroom. “Oh, I thought you meant- I thought you meant you were gonna be sharing that whiskey with me.”

It’s a dumb thing to say. Luke raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, you don’t need to polish off the whole bottle tonight. We could share it tomorrow if you like. I’m free then.”

Nick is burning right up on the spot. The yard is too noisy and the lemonade settles all sickly in his belly. “No. It’s okay. I might give finishing it a go tonight.”

Luke’s mom trundles over and fills the barrow again, and Nick seizes its handles and heads around the building before Luke can reply.

Around the front, on the dead, brown lawn he thought ten minutes ago might have potential and now he thinks is beyond repair, he makes a seat for himself and lights a cigarette. His mom has never approved of his smoking, but this is his house, at least until he and Luke somehow sell it. He needs the nicotine right now, anyway.

It’s been so easy to forget the outside world when they’re so wrapped up in their new business. Sure, working at the store every Saturday means he gets to see people other than Luke, his mom and Pete, but it’s still a bubble they’ve trapped themselves in, and one that he’s started to kind of like.

Of course it would be a pretty girl who burst it. Luke has always had a soft spot for them.

Nick’s free hand curls into a fist. It’s ridiculous to feel jealous like this. He knows that Luke likes girls and there’s parts of his life, of his desires, that don’t and never will include Nick, but it still makes him mad.

Being gay in a place like this, in this small town in the heart of North Carolina, doesn’t quite make him feel like an outsider, but it does mean he can’t talk about himself in full, not with anyone, even Luke. It’s mostly been okay and not all that suffocating, but now he wants to scream with the revelation and scare every elderly neighbour on the block.

The first time he got his heart broken by Luke, he was seventeen and sure that signals were being read the right way. After all, they’d been watching movies in Nick’s room almost every night after school, and once Luke fell asleep with his head on Nick’s shoulder and when he’d woken up he’d said nothing awkward, hadn’t freaked out at all, but instead had kept his head there for the length of the movie. Nick, with all the awkwardness of a teenage boy, had sat shocked and still and hadn’t dared move an inch.

But then, only the next night, he stood under a dim orange streetlight and watched as Luke kissed his summer sweetheart goodnight at the door, and he’d turned and run all the way home. When he’d got there, his mom and dad were arguing, and he’d slammed the front door so hard they both stopped in surprise. His dad wasn’t too happy about that one but Nick had almost enjoyed the punishment; it distracted him from reliving the moment Luke ducked to kiss that girl again and again and again.

Now, though, he’s more than old enough to get a grip and accept the way the world works. He is in the background, fucking up more often than not, and Luke is in the light and reaping all the world as his reward. That is how it has been, and how it will be. Nick has been a fool to ever expect anything to change.

“Thought you got lost,” somebody says, and he looks up to see Luke’s youngest cousin squinting down at him. She can’t be more than six years old. “Luke was gonna come find you but I told him I could.”

She’s kind of like Luke, all bright and bursting with energy. Nick shrugs sullenly. “You can tell your cousin I’m having a smoke and I’d like to be alone, thanks.”

“Um, no,” is all she says, reaching to grab his hand and try to tug him to his feet. “You can’t. We all got work to do.”

He blows out smoke but has the decency to do it in the opposite direction to her. “That’s great, kid, but I’ve been working on this place for months and I think I deserve a break. Go and, I dunno, bug Luke or something.

” “I don’t wanna bug him. He just tells me to carry on workin’, and I’m tired.”

“So go sit down inside or something. I don’t care.”

She watches him for a little while. Her nose wrinkles at the smell of tobacco. “Why are you wearing that stupid hat?”

“I like it,” he says. “Go away.”

“But we need the wheelbarrow back, that’s what Luke says,” she pouts. He’s unimpressed by her innocent little girl act. He’s seen her throw dirt in her sister’s eyes.

“Well, it’s over there and it’s empty,” he says, nodding at it. “I’m sure you’re strong enough to take it round yourself.”

She glares at him in a way that really does remind him of Luke, but gets to it without complaint. She puts admirable effort into it, pushing it with all her weight, plump cheeks going red with the effort. He doesn’t help her. He just watches as she makes a slow, breathless path around the house and out of sight.

Nick shakes his head and gets back to his cigarette.

Luke’s family, he decides glumly, is a pack of wolves that don’t even realise they’re feeding. Even the youngest are interfering little --

There’s a little cry and then the sound of skin hitting metal, and then high-pitched, ear-splitting screaming.

Nick jumps to his feet, cigarette discarded, he rushes round the house to find the girl crying in a heap on the floor. Her lip is split wide open and there’s more blood than he imagined could come from her mouth, spreading all over her chin. The side of the wheelbarrow is unscathed, but she hasn’t been so lucky.

“Shit,” he says, staring down at her, “shit, shit, are you- are you okay?”

She just cries and presses chubby little fingers to her bleeding mouth. He kneels at her side and tries to get her to stand, but she lies as stiff as a board, and just screams and screams until everybody rushes round from the yard. Nick looks up and freezes, guilty, one hand on her arm and face pale.

“Goddamnit, what did you do?” Pete asks, as Luke’s parents rush to pick her up and hold her close.

“I didn’t do anything!” Nick says, getting to his feet. Even Luke is looking at him like he’s lost his goddamn mind. “I didn’t! She tripped and banged her face, that’s all. I had nothing to do with it!”

He hopes, stupidly, that the kid will speak out and back him up, but she’s only five and pouring with blood and in no shape to realise how much shit he’s surely in.

“It’s okay,” Luke’s mom shouts over the crying, though she looks worried, “Mary’s always been clumsy. We- we should get her to the hospital just in case she needs stitches, though. That’s a lot of blood.”

Luke’s dad has her cradled in his arms and tries to wipe some of it away. He’s glaring at Nick, and he’s not the only one.

“We’ll drive you,” Nick’s mom says, gesturing to Pete. “You can stay in the back seat with her and we’ll get you there. It’s the least we can do.”

She doesn’t need to say it, but they all know she means it’s the least they can do for having a family member like Nick who makes little girls do jobs he’s supposed to do. He feels cruelly ashamed and wants to reach out for the sobbing kid, but daren’t. He’ll probably only make things worse.

It’s typical, he thinks, fucking typical that on a day as nice as today he manages to mess things up for everybody.

After that, it’s a rush; they bundle the girl up and all pile into his mom’s car, the kid’s older siblings included. Before they go, Luke kisses his youngest cousin on the forehead and tells her how brave she is, and for a moment she stops crying to listen to him. Nick stays far behind them all, biting at his lip until it’s almost bleeding, too. He keeps as quiet as possible.

When they’ve gone, it’s silent, too silent. Luke watches them go from the front of the lawn, his arms crossed tightly. Nick considers just running for it. There’s a storm in the firm lines of Luke’s back.

Luke doesn’t move for a while. Nick hesitates and then says, quietly, “I’m sure Mary is gonna be fine. She seems tough.”

It takes a while but eventually Luke turns to him with red, red cheeks and narrowed eyes. “She’s five, Nick.”

“I know, but --”

“I shouldn’t have sent her round to get you. I should’ve known that --”

“Known that what? That I’d be a big fuckin’ risk and get her hurt? This wasn’t my fault, man.”

“What was she doing with the damn wheelbarrow, then? You had one thing to do today, and a five year old ends up doing the job for you! Whose fault is it?”

Across the street, a curtain twitches. Nick doesn’t want to be arguing out here, in front of all the neighbours, but he doesn’t want to back down when Luke is standing so defiantly in front of him.

“Accidents happen, Luke!” He can’t help his voice getting louder. Luke takes a step back. “If you’re trying to suggest I pushed her over --”

“Of course I’m not suggestin’ that, don’t be so goddamn dramatic.”

“Really? Because it sounds like you’re saying that I had some say in whether the girl fell or not. She wanted to help, okay, and I thought maybe she could manage!”

Luke sighs heavily through his nose. Nick shuts up. He’s not being strictly honest, of course, as he’s not going to tell Luke how he refused to get up and help and made the girl try it herself. Nobody needs to know that.

“Look. I know you didn’t mean to get her hurt, but—I don’t want to get into an argument with you right now, Nick, not when things have been going so well today. I just- I’d like you to go, if that’s okay. I think you’ve done enough here today.”

It’s like being back at school with soft-spoken teachers telling him that he’s no good and he’ll never amount to fucking anything. Luke’s got a knack of making him feel younger, even though they’re only months apart in age, and Nick can’t find the strength to fight back against him. He just glares and clenches his jaw and dreams of punching that self-assured look right off his friend’s face.

“You’re a real piece of shit, Luke. This isn’t my fault.”

“Just go.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” Nick says, feeling cold all over.

They glower at each other, Nick breathing heavily through his nose.

He wants to hit Luke. He wants to punch that sneering expression right off his face and grab him by the t-shirt to shake him until kind words fall out again, or at least some kind of apology for blaming him for a kid’s clumsiness. He knows he’s in the wrong, he knows that girl’s blood is on his hands, but Luke is supposed to accept him, faults and all, and if he can’t trust him to forgive him at every turn, what hope does he have? He clenches his fists and grits his teeth and feels venomous.

“I think you need to calm down,” Luke says. His voice is maddeningly patient.

“Don’t talk to me like that, man!” Nick tosses his hands above his head in frustration. “Stop telling me what to do!”

“You’re actin’ like a child. I’m tired of you snappin’ all the time, it makes my head ache.”

“Good,” Nick says, stupidly. He kicks at the lawn. “I’m sorry your cousin got hurt but I’m not going to take any shit from you for something that wasn’t my fault.”

“Then don’t take it,” Luke says, simply. “Get out of here.”

It’s getting cold and Nick shivers, bare arms prickling with goosebumps. The morning has melted into the afternoon, and the weather has soured. His tongue is heavy with every argument he can think of, but there’s no point in any of them.

He heads into the house to get his jacket and keys, and doesn’t look at Luke when he gets into his car. The drive home is nothing more than a blur. He almost crashes twice.

 

\---

 

In the early hours of the next morning, he wakes bathed in electric light as his phone buzzes.

He blinks and stretches and reads the message on screen.

_Date was a disaster. If you want to share that whisky, I’m back at the house now._

Two seconds later, it flashes again. _I’m sorry._

Nick gets out of bed.

 

 

**_six._ **

 

“You wanna start on this wall and I’ll get the other?” Luke asks, hands on his hips.

The steam from the wallpaper stripper is rising and curling the tips of his hair, flushing his skin pink. Nick dreams of cold showers as he nods and surveys the yellowed wallpaper that he’ll hopefully never have to see again after today.

He goes to open the window. It’s humid outside, too, so it doesn’t do much good. The yard outside is totally clear. Nick gives it a dumb little grin.

They get to work in a studious silence, but for Luke’s muttered cursing. It’s boring, dirty work that stains the tips of Nick’s fingers. It’s also frustrating; when he pulls the paper off, it often leaves a layer beneath it, meaning he has use the steamer and get himself even more pissed off trying to work it.

Every few minutes, Luke will come over to his side of the room to borrow it. When Nick passes it over, they end up touching – their hands or their wrists, their arms, skin brushes against skin and Nick has to force himself to focus on the job in hand.

“Thanks,” Luke says, every time, and Nick grunts in return.

This bedroom is the largest and once they’re done with the stripping, they plan to paint the walls a neutral white and get the floor polished nicely. They might try to find a cheap bed from somewhere just so it’s not completely empty, but Nick put his foot down when Luke suggested any more decorating. They’re not here to create a home.

They’ve spent more time here than their respective homes in the past few months, and they have sleeping bags in the living room now, but one day – soon – they will have to contact the realtor again and move on to the next.

Nick doesn’t dwell on how that makes him feel. Doing this all over again is a prospect sour enough to choke him.

“Whoever decorated this house in the first place was an asshole,” Luke says after an hour of hard work. His sweater is discarded in the corner and he’s got the sleeves of his t-shirt pushed up to the elbow. “It’s like they used fuckin’ super glue to stick this on.”

Nick rips off a long strip of it with some satisfaction. “I know. I’d suggest leaving it here, but nobody needs bright yellow walls when they wake up in the morning.”

“Hey, my mom decorated her and dad’s room yellow last year,” Luke says, with a frown.

“Your mom’s room is also full of dumb toy horses,” Nick snorts, remembering one summer as a kid when he accidentally broke the legs off one. He’ll never forget how angry she got. “She’s not exactly a model for good decorating.”

Luke gasps in horror, but when Nick looks over at him he finds he’s smiling. Nick grins back. Outside, a wasp is trying valiantly to get in but keeps head-butting the glass instead of going through the open window. It’s buzzing fills the room, fills Nick’s head as he looks over the room, as he tries not to blink and break eye contact.

It’s Luke who looks away first, of course. “Fuck, it’s hot,” he says, and pulls his t-shirt over his head.

Nick turns around so fast he hurts his back. The wall, though offensively bright, is so much safer to look at than a shirtless Luke. He’s seen him shirtless before, of course, but never after such a smile and never when his breath keeps getting tangled in his throat. He licks his lips, takes a steady breath, and gets back to work.

It’s more difficult to find a rhythm now, knowing that Luke is half revealed behind him. The wasp won’t give up and he considers going to shoo it away. He’d only get stung, of course, but then he might be distracted from the temptation of looking.

“You fancy a beer? There’s a couple still in the fridge.”

“Sure,” Nick says. His voice is higher than usual and he swallows. He hates himself. “Only if you haven’t got anything stronger in there.”

Luke laughs. “I’m beginnin’ to think you have a real problem with booze. It’ s three in the afternoon.”

“You’re the one suggesting we start on the beer,” Nick says.

“Fair point.”

There’s another silence, but this one prickles. Nick feels Luke’s eyes on him like laser points, and it’s completely against his every instinct, but he turns to look at him. He immediately regrets it.

Luke is leaning against the doorframe, ankles crossed, all cocky and at ease. His eyes are fixed firmly on Nick and he’s smiling, softly. Nick glances down without quite meaning to; Luke’s body is firm and dusted lightly with a trial of dark hair, and it’s all Nick can do not to follow the path of it.

“Uh,” he says, stupidly. “You waiting for my permission to go or something?”

“No,” Luke says, voice gentle, deep. “I’m just—shit, I don’t know. I’m just happy.”

“Happy? I don’t know how you’ve got time for that. We have loads to do.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Luke heaves himself from the doorframe with an exaggerated sigh, and disappears into the corridor and down the stairs. Nick glares after him and tries to ignore his sweating palms. At least he’s got the hot day as an excuse.

His shirt is sticking to his back and he wants to join Luke and pull it off, but that might just tip him right over the edge. He will start to think about skin on skin, about heat solidified in his hand, under his fingertips, fingers that he can run all over and hold and --

The steamer slips to the floor with a bang. “Fuck,” he mutters. Knowing his luck, the damn thing has probably broken.

Luke takes his merry time fetching the beers, and Nick’s got curled, damp wallpaper all over the floor by the time he returns.

Nick downs half of the bottle when Luke passes it over, just to try and soothe his throat. It’s the hottest summer day that he can remember. Luke’s chest would be scalding if Nick reached out. He doesn’t try it.

“Days like today make you miss winter, huh?”

“I guess. Could do without the frost, though.” Nick eyes the wall Luke is supposed to be working on. The back of his neck is prickling. “Man, come on. That’s not gonna strip itself.”

He goes flushes when he realises what he’s said and turns back to his own work. He’s probably so red with the heat that Luke can’t notice but now the blush is spreading to the tips of his ears, down the valley of his throat. Luke laughs somewhere behind him. He closes his eyes and tries not to get mad.

His temper has been flying further and further away from him recently. It’s always just out of his reach to start reigning back.

Every time he moves, his sweat-soaked shirt rubs him just the wrong way. His belly aches. He thinks about anything but his friend as he twists his fingers in the hem of the shirt and pulls it quick and easy over his head. He throws it into the corner, bare skin tingling, and breathes a little easier.

Behind him, Luke clears his throat. To Nick it’s magnified wildly; the sounds reverberates around his skull and he envisions the way Luke’s neck would have looked, working the noise, how he might have swallowed afterward and clenched his jaw. It’s enough to make Nick’s fingers slip around the steamer again, sending it to the floor.

“Piece of shit,” he mutters, and means himself.

“Jesus, Nick,” Luke laughs. He’s there before Nick knows it, bending to lift the neck of it.

His back is smooth, tanned, and slightly sheened with sweat. Nick cradles his beer again and doesn’t look away. He grants himself this one small pleasure, this small glance. He can imagine how it would feel to grab those hips and move against him, behind him. Luke straightens and smiles at him, and Nick’s mouth feels full of wasps.

Luke’s smile falters. He narrows his eyes, suck at his bottom lip. Nick keeps his gaze for only seconds before looking down at the wallpaper at his feet.

They stand there like that for longer than necessary, shirtless and breath heaving with the heat, and Nick is about to mutter something about calling it a day because he really wants to go home, get out, drive somewhere like the river where he can skip stones and cool down like the cowardly piece of shit he is. Luke changes the course of his day when he reaches out and wraps long fingers around Nick’s upper arm.

“Hey,” he says. He sounds confused, conflicted. His voice scrapes against his teeth and comes out rough. “Is everythin’ alright?”

“You don’t have to ask me that every couple of hours.” Nick tries to shrug him off. He holds on tighter, thumb brushing across his skin. “I’m fine. I’m just hot and it’s pissing me off.”

“That’s it?” Luke asks, urges. He moves closer. Nick would back away if there weren’t a wall already behind him.

Luke often patronises him, often tells him he’s clearly lying when he says he’s doing alright even though he’s been scowling all day. Now, though, now there is no condescension; there is searching and concern and an intensity to his questioning that threatens to break Nick.

“That’s it,” Nick says. He licks his lips and his stomach squeezes when Luke’s eyes follow the movement of his tongue.

“Okay,” is all Luke says, almost absently. “Nick, I gotta say, I’m --”

“Hey, boys!”

Luke stumbles back, releasing Nick’s arm like he’s been burned. His eyes are wide and kind of scared, like he’s sixteen and he’s been caught smoking. “Um,” he says, looking at anything but Nick. “Uh --”

Nick closes his eyes and lets out a long breath. He’s never hated his uncle more as when he heads up the stairs and into the bedroom, arms full of Tupperware and bottles of coke. “Hey,” Pete says, nodding at the pair of them. Nick takes the bottles from him. “Your mom sent me with some bakin’ and stuff. She said you’d probably be burnin’ up.”

“Smart woman,” Luke says, and he’s back to his assured self, taking the boxes of food interestedly. Nick lines the bottles up against the already stripped bit of wall and contemplates kicking them all, one by one, until the floor is full of sticky liquid and smashed glass.

“The smartest,” Pete agrees. He raises an eyebrow at Nick. “Come on, boy, what are you starin’ at your feet for? Come and help. Your mom worked hard on all of this.

“I don’t need _you_ to tell me how hard she works,” Nick says, and it’s like lighting a match. The room blows up again with Pete raising his voice and Nick raising his right back, and Luke looking at Nick with large, exasperated eyes.

It’s easier to blow up the atmosphere and shatter it like that, Nick finds as he starts to really shout at Pete. It’s easier to have Luke turn away from him, shaking his head at his temper. It’s easier than thinking of his careful touch. It’s easier than thinking of what he might have said if he could have said it all.

 

 

_**five.** _

 

They start to sleep most nights at the house. The old beds were thrown out the day after they purchased the place so they use sleeping bags and stay up late at night talking and drinking as though they’re having sleepovers. It’s childish and ridiculous, but Nick spends most of the day looking forward to those twilight hours in rooms that smell like polish and paint and dust, with nobody there but him and Luke, barely visible across the floor.

Their conversations are straight out of _Stand By Me_ and they remember the nights they wasted away at local bars watching local girls and wishing they were by the sea. They are twenty four and too old for it; Nick feels out of place in his skin, a teenager and past his prime all at once. Luke confesses that he’s scared of dying. Nick tells him not to worry about it.

“It’s just the night spookin’ me,” Luke agrees. Even in the half-light he looks unconvinced. Nick knocks back his beer. He lets the bottle clunk to the floor and Luke reaches over to right it. His knuckles dust Nick’s bare knee. “My mom has been talkin’ a lot recently about what will happen to the farm after her and dad are gone.”

Jean and Roy are old, and Nick knows their time will come sooner rather than later. “You think you’ll take it over?”

“I don’t want to,” Luke says. His voice catches; Nick waits, silently, for Luke to gather himself together. “It’s not what I want at all but I can’t just sell it. They put their whole lives into it. My grandparents did, too.”

Nick can’t understand the loyalty. He has nothing to take from his father except a lifetime of guilt and shameful drunkenness, and he’s already started following in his footsteps. “Then don’t,” is all he says, unhelpfully, and Luke raises a beer to the sentiment.

“What about you?” he asks, swilling the beer around his mouth. “What do you want to do with your life?”

It really is like being sixteen again, but what’s the point in planning what to do when they grow up? They are grown up. They should have figured themselves out by now. Nick’s stomach curls up inside of him like burnt paper; he shrugs, though Luke can’t see it.

“I thought we were doing this,” he says, quietly. “You know, this- this real estate stuff.”

“We are. I just- I didn’t think you’d be interested in this for the long term.”

All Nicks wants to do is stay wherever Luke is. Without his shine, Nick might just dim entirely. One day, that cut off will come; Luke will finally meet the girl of his dreams and they’ll have a big white wedding, and Nick will be his best man and his tuxedo will suffocate him. Perhaps then he can move on. Maybe he will move out of this town, start afresh.

He says none of this.

Instead, he laughs. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe. I’ve never really thought about it.”

Luke sighs. He lies back on his sleeping bag, folding his arms behind his head. Nick mirrors the movements. “I guess I’m only scared of dyin’ because I can’t control it,” Luke says. He talks slowly, figuring himself out as he goes along. “It’s not even what might happen after. I don’t know much about that. It’s just- I don’t want somethin’ to happen to me without my say so.”

“It’ll happen to everyone,” Nick says. “I don’t like the thought of it much either, sure, but there’s no point dwelling on it.”

Above them, the ceiling is freshly painted and nearly dried. Nick spent the day on the ladder with the paint roller, trying to get all of the corners and trying to avoid breaking his neck. Luke stayed on solid ground and held the ladder. Nick had wobbled dangerously at one point. Luke had held his thigh then, instead.

Luke hums in agreement. They are quiet for minutes. Nick still feels the ghost of fingers at his leg. He shifts in his sleeping bag, tries to ignore his sudden need for nicotine.

The silence swells and tries to smother them. Luke says, “Are we going --” just as Nick starts to ask “Do you --” and they both go silent.

“Sorry,” Luke says, after a beat, “what were you gonna say?”

“Nothing important.” He hesitates and then leans over to rummage in his jacket pocket, pulling out his cigarettes. “I know you don’t like it in the house but it’s cold outside and I can’t be bothered to move --”

“Sure,” Luke says, a smile in his voice. “You can smoke.”

“Thank fuck,” Nick says. He switches the lamp on and bathes them both in orange glow. Luke blinks with the light.

It takes a minute to roll himself one but soon Nick’s sitting up, propped against the windowsill, lit cigarette between his fingers. It helps to clear his head, even though as it works to stink out the room. Luke watches him as he smokes. He breathes in deep.

“What were you gonna say?” Nick asks.

“I was just gonna talk about what you want to work on tomorrow. I thought we could make a start on scrubbing this floor. It’s pretty wrecked.”

“Sure,” Nick shrugs. Luke sits up. “What?”

“Can I have one?”

Nick eyes him. “I haven’t seen you smoke since we were seventeen.”

“I know,” Luke says. He crawls across the floor and settles cross-legged next to him, holding out a hand and smiling, sleepily. “Come on. I’m in the mood for one.”

“Uh. Sure.” Nick fumbles at first with the tobacco and paper but soon has one rolled and he hands it over. He’s suspicious, sure, but Luke’s a grown man. If he wants to suddenly start smoking, Nick doesn’t mind; at least he wouldn’t have to step outside into the cold alone anymore. Luke puts it between his lips.

Nick lights it. He’s not sure why he doesn’t just hand the lighter over. He raises the flame and cups it. There’s no wind, of course, but he gets to graze Luke’s jaw with his knuckle.

Luke closes his eyes and inhales deep. Nick expects him to choke like a kid but he takes it in nice and smooth, and when he exhales he has a satisfied look on his face. He looks nice in the dim light, smoke escaping between his lips. He looks relaxed.

“Don’t let me have another, please,” he says, and Nick nods, just grateful the talk of Luke dying has passed. “This is nice. I don’t want to get addicted.”

“I won’t,” Nick says. He bumps his shoulder against Luke’s and takes another drag, stretching his legs out in front of him.

It’s times like these that he doesn’t mind the house around them. It’s theirs, after all, and it’s starting to take shape, and they haven’t yet killed each other. There’s a reason they’re best friends, he reminds himself. Despite Luke’s superiority and Nick’s temper, they choose each other over anyone else. Luke approached _him_ to go into business. He didn’t ask anybody else.

If Nick were to ever have such a spark of initiative or creativity, he’d ask Luke first, too.

Luke nudges him back.

“Your uncle was telling me the other day he might take your mom on vacation next month,” he says. His voice, already smoke-thickened, gets dull and sullen. “Maybe somewhere in Europe. I guess you’re gonna go.”

It’s the first Nick’s heard of it. That’s no surprise though; Pete doesn’t share all that much with him, and Luke has always been such a good listener. Nick’s never been to Europe. It’s amazing that Pete can even afford. He’s been talking about treating his sister for years, but it would surely drain a lot of his retirement money.

“I don’t think I’m invited.”

Luke frowns. “Pete said you were. He thinks you’ll enjoy it.”

“Oh.” He probably would. Anything outside of this little town sounds damn near perfect. “I guess – well, I’m not sure. Maybe. I don’t know. It would be nice to have a break.”

Luke takes a slow and careful drag of his cigarette. The relaxed lines of his shoulders have hardened, tensed. He plays with the hem of his faded t-shirt. “It’ll be strange in this house without you.” There’s a pause, and the corner of his mouth twitches upward. “We’ll miss you.”

Nick swallows. Those words are all it takes to sour any thought of leaving America, even for just a week or two. “I don’t have to go. I don’t know if I really want to. It’d mean spending more time with Pete than I really feel up to.”

He expects Luke to get annoyed with the fact he’s putting down his uncle – _again_ ¬ – but Luke just nods. He shifts, and rests into Nick’s side, shoulders pressed up against each other. “I don’t want you to go,” he says. It’s a confession, and he keeps his eyes averted in the aftermath of it.

The words crawl down Nick’s throat and settle warmly in his belly. He grins and leans right back into Luke. “I wouldn’t be gone long,” he says, though his mind is already made up.

“I know. It’s dumb.”

“It’s not dumb.” Nick draws his knees up to his chest. “I wouldn’t want to have to do all the work here by myself, either.”

“It’s not the work.” Luke looks at him, now, frustrated. “You’re always puttin’ yourself down. It’s not the work, it’s- I’d miss you, that’s all, I don’t like the thought of you not bein’ here.”

Over the past few months, through changing seasons and long, hot days, and long, cold nights, Nick has often dreamed of getting out of here. This house was everything he’d dreaded about the business proposal. They were in too over their heads. They were tens of thousands of dollars in debt to the bank with little prospect of making any kind of profit. They were fucked, and Nick had known it from the beginning.

But now- well, now this house is something else. It’s become a place that he and Luke share with little interruption. There’s been arguments and frustration, but there are also moment like this, when Luke is heavy against him and the lights are low.

Nick doesn’t want to leave this house. When the time comes, he doesn’t want to sell it. He doesn’t want to end this nightmare.

“I won’t go,” he promises. In the dim, orange light, Luke’s hand finds his.

 

\---

 

He wakes with the morning light. There’s a weight across his stomach and a warmth at his side. Luke is pressed against him, arm stretched around him.

Nick takes a long moment to savour the sight of him. His breathing is soft, gentle. His hair is all over his face and his lips are slightly parted. For a few golden moments he is a lover rather than a pseudo brother. Nick smiles, his throat tight, and makes himself push Luke away.

 

 

_**four.** _

 

“This is real good stuff, hon,” Roy says through a mouthful of steak. “Beautiful.”

Jean preens and Nick and Luke hum their agreement.

Luke’s family’s farm has never felt quite like a home, at least to Nick. They used to tease him when he was younger and say that he never did have a good way with the animals, and though they make him uneasy, he’s not sure that’s the reason he doesn’t like it.

Jean and Roy are good people. They have to be – they raised Luke, and he’s turned out great. But sometimes they look at Nick a certain way like they just _know_ every one of his secrets. Roy often gets impatient with him. Luke says his dad gets impatient with everyone, but there’s something in the sharpness of his voice that sets Nick on edge.

At least the food is relatively good. With all the time spent at the house with Luke, they’ve been missing out on home-cooked meals. There’s only so many takeouts they can stomach before they start hungering for something a little less greasy. Nick secretly thinks his mom is the better cook, and she doesn’t even have a whole farm behind her, but he decides not to say that.

Beneath the table, Luke’s knee keeps knocking into Nick’s whenever he shifts. It’s an accident, of course. Nick tries to ignore it.

“I swear you’ve both lost weight since buying that place,” Jean says as she settles down at the end of the table, tucking her long skirt beneath her. “You should stop by more often and fill yourselves up. We always have plenty to spare.”

“Thanks,” Nick says. She smiles at him.

“Sorry I’ve not been home much. We’ve been really busy.”

Jean frowns, her eyebrows raised as her son looks apologetic. “Hmm. I get that, but is it really necessary to sleep there? You must be goin’ crazy with nothin’ but paint and each other.”

“Sleeping there isn’t so bad,” Nick shrugs. Luke knocks their knees together again. Nick’s breath gets caught in his throat.

“Are you sure?” Jean asks. “A proper bed would do your backs a lot of good. Maybe you could --”

Roy’s chair scrapes back on the polished floor. He makes a great show of reaching across the room to grab his newspaper, and then settles behind it, obscuring himself almost totally from view. “Leave it, Jean,” is all he says, his mouth full. “If they wanna make a life out of this business of theirs, leave them to it. They’re grown men.”

Jean seethes, but silently. Nick learned when he was fourteen and nervously talkative around Luke’s parents that when Roy has his paper, he’s not to be disturbed. Even conversations they could be having around him tend to cease; Jean is reluctant to even almost interrupt him, and Luke just takes to rolling his eyes in his father’s directions every time he turns the page and mutters to himself about worldly events.

Nick tries not to get involved with any glaring matches this time. He sticks to eating his steamed carrots. His own family politics are difficult enough without getting involved with Luke’s, too. After all these years he’s half-surprised he’s not an honorary member, but he sometimes he feels like he’s meeting them for the first time all over again, trying to impress and charm them.

He’s yet to succeed.

“Pass the salt, please,” Jean says, quietly, and Roy exhales heavily through his nostrils.

Luke grits his teeth with a look in his father’s direction. He sets the salt down so heavily in front of his mom that his dad’s fingers twitch, creasing the corners of the newspaper. Nick looks between them, fork hovering near his mouth.

Luke is often frustrated with his dad, but rarely openly annoyed. Nick’s not sure what’s gotten into him.

“A proper bed does sound nice, thanks mom. We’re okay though,” Luke says, loudly, after a pause. “I appreciate you thinkin’ of us.”

His loyalty to his mom doesn’t seem to have the desired effect. She scowls at him, and then at his father. “Luke, keep your voice down. Your dad’s tryin’ to read, you know that.”

They’re another long pause. Luke glares down at his plate and starts pushing his food around with his fork. His mouth is a flat, tight line.

Jean stands up to refill everyone’s glasses. Luke’s knuckles are white against his cutlery. Nick wants to reach out and grab his shoulder, maybe give him a heartening slap on shoulder, maybe just squeeze his hands. His collared shirt feels too tight around his neck. He doesn’t reach out.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he mumbles, and gets out of the room before he chokes.

In the cold, tiled bathroom, Nick leans against the wall and wishes he could smoke here. He knows Roy has a pipe, but he doesn’t want to give him and Jean an excuse to see Nick as a bad influence.

He laughs to himself. He’s too old to keep worrying about parents. He needs to grow up.

He takes as long as he can without seeming suspicious, dawdling in the bathroom and examining himself in the mirror, running a hand through his hair and messing it up. Eventually, after splashing water across his face to cool his itching cheeks, he starts to breathe a little easier.

“Did you hear what happened down in the city last week?” Jean is asking, quietly, when Nick comes back.

Luke, mouth full of pork, shakes his head. Nick sits back down and shrugs. Roy looks up from his paper, bulbous nose wrinkled as he and Jean share a dark look.

“Bunch of protestors all outside of the city hall,” Jean sniffs, reaching over to top up their glasses of wine. “We were passing on the way back from the market and we accidentally got caught up in the middle of this rainbow-waving, revolting protest. There were men all over each other, it was- well, all I can say is I’m glad we have God in this house.”

“Pansies,” Roy mutters, with a shake of his dead. “That or women who looked men. Was damn disgusting.”

Nick gets all warm and uncomfortable and starts shifting in his seat. There’s another strange prickling across his cheekbones and up the back of his neck. Jean and Roy are usually pretty liberal when it comes to the modern world, but North Carolina is hardly the most tolerant of states, and they live right in the rural heart of it.

He clears his throat but stays otherwise quiet. His arguments would never be worth the searching looks.

“Dad,” Luke scolds, and he’s got his eyebrows raised. “Mom. Don’t be so backward.”

“It ain’t being backward, son, it’s called being moral. I’m thinkin’ you just want an argument with your old man, but you ain’t gonna win this one.”

Roy’s got his lips pursed and he’s lowered his paper for the first time. Nick looks between him and his son, hoping nobody notices quite how red the patches on his cheeks have become. He’s sure he’s glowing like a damn furnace right now; he tries to catch his reflection in his fork, and sees only red.

“Win? What is there to win?” Luke doesn’t look all that concerned with his dad’s anger, but he’s lounging back on his chair in an insolent way that’s sure to only make it worse. “I don’t really get what’s so wrong with those folks wantin’ some respect from people like you.”

“People like me? Christians, you mean?”

Luke glances at the crucifix hanging innocently by the clock. Nick pointedly _doesn’t_ look that way. “No. You’re just bein’ hateful.”

Jean looks shocked and shakes her head, one hand on her hip. “Luke, you’re just bein’ difficult right now and you know it. You might think it’s smart to talk to your father like that but I reckon you’re just showin’ off because your friend is here. Just eat your food and keep quiet about things you clearly don’t understand.”

“Things I don’t understand? How about things _you_ don’t understand, mom? You ever stop to think that maybe you’re the one being argumentative for no damn reason?”

“Luke,” Nick says, quietly. He’s ignored.

Roy’s eyes are in shadow, at least from where Nick is sitting. He has big, heavy eyebrows that threaten to take over the rest of his face, and his skin is thick and leathery and wrinkled from all the years he’s spent on the farm. He looks nothing like Luke right now. Nick is glad. It makes it easier to hate him.

“I suggest,” Roy says, silky and slow, “that you shut up now, boy. You’re makin’ yourself out to be somethin’ you’re not in front of us all, and we don’t want to be thinkin’ of you in that way, understand? You’re sympathisin’ with a cause nobody is gonna back you up on.”

“I don’t need you to back me up.” Luke throws down his knife and fork. “I’m not tryin’ to argue with the two of you. I’m tryin’ to reason with you.”

Nick is reminded of history class, tenth grade. They’d been asked to debate over something Nick can’t even remember – the pros and cons of the rise of communism in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, or something – and Luke had taken it in his stride. He’d been bursting with passion, regardless of subject matter; he’d taken every counter-argument in his stride and kept his cool and won every damn argument.

In the corner of the class, hands hidden in his sleeves, Nick had watched in silent awe. He feels kind of the same now. Luke is a sword-wielding gladiator in the face of a lion. He’d say he was swooning if he weren’t so set on seeming at least a little in control of himself. Luke’s knee is too far to reach when he tries to bump his against it to silence him.

“You’re treadin’ a thin line right now,” Roy says. He folds the paper up entirely and sets it on the table. “I’m not sure what you’re tryin’ to reason against. I’ve told you how the world is. You know what those- those disgustin’ people want and you know that good, honest people like us have to stop panderin’ to them.”

“Roy,” Nick says, “I don’t think that --”

Jean reaches over to place a hand on his shoulder. She surely thinks him an ally through all of this, but really she’s making his skin crawl right now.

“I don’t care what you’ve told me. I think I’m old enough to have my own opinions, dad.”

“Yeah, opinions you have no right expressin’ under my roof. Maybe when you move out and start supportin’ yourself, you can talk about things like that, but not while you’re livin’ by my rules.”

“I am supportin’ myself! I’ve got my business. That’s not the point. I don’t like to sit here and listen to you two thinkin’ you’re so much better than them folk, when they just want to live their lives.”

Roy snorts through his considerably large nostrils. His glare moves to Nick, who jumps at the burn of it. “Can you talk some sense into this boy? Maybe he’d listen to you.”

Jean and Luke turn to look at him as well. Jean is smiling, all encouraging, and Luke’s eyes are wide and pleading. Nick chews at the inside of his lip. If he sides with Jean and Roy, he’d be lying, but at least then he can avoid any questions he’s definitely not ready to answer. He looks between the couple, and then back at Luke.

“Luke,” he says, and the defeat in his friend’s eyes suffocates his next words. He licks at his lips. “I can’t talk any sense into you. You’re already talking it.”

Luke beams, outright beams, his whole face glowing with it. Jean starts tutting and Roy shakes his head, but Nick notices neither of them; he grins back and Luke ducks his head, and it doesn’t matter what his parents are doing. It doesn’t matter what anyone is doing except for Luke, moving his leg to meet Nick’s again under the table, but this time keeping the pressure there.

Roy sighs heavily and goes for his paper again.

“Who wants dessert?” Jean asks, pained.

 

 

_**three.** _

 

There’s a great streak of white paint across Luke’s cheek when Nick walks into the living room one warm afternoon.

“Hey,” Luke says, happily. “Do you think you could give me a hand?”

Nick’s common sense flatlines. He goes straight up to him and tries to wipe the paint away with his sleeve. It smudges. He gives up and kisses him instead.

It’s gentle, with a hand to the small of his back to keep him still. Luke’s lips are stunned, then sluggish, then slow. Then, they are searching.

Nick keeps his eyes half-open so he doesn’t have to spend a moment not looking at Luke; Luke’s eyes are firmly closed, his eyelashes dusting at his cheeks. His hand comes up to touch Nick’s jaw, softly, cupping the firm line of it, cradling. The sunlight pours in through the open window.

It isn’t Nick’s first kiss, and it isn’t quite the best he’s ever had; he is still too long, and all he can smell is wet paint. When he inhales through his nose, Luke exhales through his. Nick’s fingers press harder, twist themselves up in the back of Luke’s shirt. They pause, together.

He starts to pull back, ready to apologise or stare dreamily or run right out of the door, but Luke makes a small noise in the back of his throat and follows his lips, catching them again. The kiss is more fervent, more breathless, and Nick grabs firmly at Luke’s hips this time. Luke’s hands touch his cheeks, his hair, the back of his neck. They guide him ever closer.

He walks Luke backward, into the freshly painted wall. There’s sure to be lashings of white paint coating the back of his shirt now but Luke is undeterred; he pushes a sure tongue against Nick’s, tasting the inside of his mouth. Nick regrets the cigarette he smoked just before getting here.

The hands in his hair start to grab. Nick hitches him up further against the wall, knee pressing up between his legs. Luke groans and Nick guides his hips, and the world spins.

“Luke,” Nick breathes, and Luke starts to still in his arms. It’s a slow spread; first, he plants his feet on the floor, firmly, and then he lowers his arms and then he pulls away, lips starting to press together.

When they break apart this time, it’s for good. Nick keeps his hands in place but moves his face away, and says “I’ve wanted to do that for so --” just as Luke says “I’m sorry, that should never --”

They fall silent. Nick goes cold. His hands drop away from Luke in an instant.

“Sorry,” Luke says, stepping back. “What were you going to say?”

“I--” He looks at Luke’s red cheeks and the uncertain line of his mouth. He looks scared. Nick starts to feel sick. “It doesn’t matter. What about you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luke repeats. He lifts a hand to his mouth, touches his reddened lower lip. “I don’t- I don’t feel so good.”

Nick burns at the words. He feels the heat all the way down his spine. It’s not a nice warmth; he seethes with it, fingers curling into fists. “You don’t feel so good,” he says, slowly. “Yeah, well, you know what? Me fucking neither.”

Luke lowers his eyes to the floor. He looks much the same as always. Nick’s thought about kissing him so many times, and he never dreamed it would really happen – but if it did, if he were ever so lucky, if things ever went so well for him for once, he imagined that Luke would smile like he always does and maybe tell him how he’s hungered for him.

He would not expect Luke – so sure, so self-possessed – to look away. He would never expect him to be ashamed.

Nick doesn’t look away. He’s proud of himself for it; he wants to turn and run and wallow far away from Luke, but he doesn’t. He is sick of dying inside every day. He is sick of the sunlight that sweeps broadly over them. He is sick of this house, sick of Luke, sick of his own sycophantic desires.

It’s dumb, but he longs to kiss him again, even now.

“You’re straight,” Nick says. It’s not a question, not really. He’s always known it. Luke keeps his eyes on the floor and crosses his arms, hugging himself. “You like girls. You’ve always liked girls.”

“Yeah,” Luke says, broken.

“You kissed me back. You kissed me.”

“I—yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

It’s a simple question, but Luke doesn’t answer straight away. Nick studies him – old, faded band t-shirt all paint-stained, khaki shorts, old sneakers, hair that probably should have been washed yesterday. Nick’s heart still jumps, his breath still catches. He is still a lost man.

“I--” Luke shakes his head, seems to force himself to meet Nick’s eye. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I made a mistake.”

Laughter spills from Nick, but it’s venomous. He almost chokes on it. There is nothing to say in the face of such an admission. Luke has made a mistake kissing him. He was probably caught up in Nick’s feverous movements, brain dappled by the sunlight. Maybe it was the paint fumes. It doesn’t matter.

Luke is never, ever going to fall in love with him.

It’s not Luke’s fault. That realisation makes Nick laugh again, the sound more hollow this time. Luke can’t help it. Nick is being the selfish kid his uncle always tells him he is. He has always known that Luke is straight and out of bounds, and still he burst into the room and kissed him. Still he overstepped his boundary. Still he dared to dream.

“A mistake,” Nick says. Luke nods, eyes wide and earnest.

The fight goes out of Nick. He lets out a long breath and scratches the back of his neck. It’s his turn to lower his eyes, focusing on Luke’s sneakers.

Luke swallows. “I’m sorry,” he says, again.

“Don’t be. This was- this is my fault. I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have thought you could --”

“I never knew that you were into- into, you know,” Luke says, all in a rush, twisting his fingers in the hem of his t-shirt. “I mean, I guessed, sometimes, when you didn’t date anyone in school or ever talk about girls, and sometimes I thought maybe you might be, but – you should’ve told me, man, I don’t mind. I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

They’re words Nick has wanted to hear for years, but now they just make his skin crawl. “It’s not that easy,” he says, and it’s an admittance, it’s a coming out, it’s more monumental than he is in the mood to comprehend. “You don’t understand.”

Luke glares, just for a moment, his eyes narrowing – and then his shoulders sag and he runs a hand through his hair, nodding. “I- I don’t. I know. I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that.” Nick still feels kind of breathless from the kiss. It’s ridiculous, but his chest is seizing up, and if it weren’t for his dignity he might sink to the floor right now. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“It does matter. It mattered. I’m just …” He looks sadly at Nick, at his heaving chest and the pink of his cheeks. He reaches forward to touch his cheek but Nick flinches and pulls away. “You know you can talk to me.”

Nick tries to gather his old self around him, that cloak of sarcasm and cynicism, tries to snap like he would have snapped before Luke saw him at his most vulnerable. It doesn’t work as well as he hoped; Luke is still looking at him like he’s some kid without anyone to look after him, like he needs Luke’s sympathy instead of his lips.

“I’m fine. There’s nothing to fucking talk about.”

“Nick, you just _kissed_ me.”

“Yeah, I did. You don’t need to remind me. I was a fucking idiot. Let’s just- just --” He throws his hands in the air. He wants to burn this house to the ground, the both of them still inside. “Let’s just forget it happened. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

He knows. He knows, and he aches, and Luke looks completely unconvinced.

“We shouldn’t have to forget it happened.” Luke rubs at his lower lip. “Please don’t think I- I think any less of you, man. You’re still my best friend.”

Nick wants to remind him that he kissed him back, that when Nick sought to pull away he pulled him right back in again. Luke moaned when Nick put the pressure between his legs, he smiled, he closed his eyes, he let himself get pushed back against the wet paint, clothes be damned. He was into the kiss as much as Nick was. He’s turning this round to be Nick’s problems, as though he were just an outsider, as though he just watched Nick make a damn fool of himself instead of encouraging it.

“I know,” Nick says. “I should go.”

“You don’t have to,” Luke says, at once. “Stay. We can get this room painted.”

“I want to go home. I’ve got – I have grocery shopping to do.”

It’s true – his mom is off in Europe with Pete for as long as they can afford to stay there, probably at least a couple of weeks more, and he’s not used to having to stock up the cupboards for himself. It could wait, of course, but right now the need for an excuse consumes him. Luke looks disappointed, but not surprised.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to help,” he says. “I’ll do – I don’t know – I’ll do the other wall or the ceiling or something. I just, I can’t do it today.”

Luke heaves a sigh. He goes for his forgotten paintbrush, dropped to the floor when Nick burst into the room. There are splashes of drying white paint all over the floorboards that will take an age to scrape off.

“Okay,” Luke says, and turns away from him. The stripe down his back, in his hair, is a brilliant white – tonight, he will try and rinse it off, try to move on from being pressed against the wall with such fervour. Nick almost hopes it won’t be easy. “Okay, Nick, I- sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Nick hesitates at the door, but he leaves. It’s not until he’s in his car that he realises the gravity of what he’s done.

He bends his neck, drops his head on the wheel, and dreams of crashing.

 

\---

 

Later, much later – after a few tears he’ll never admit, and a grocery shop far too unhealthy – Nick sits in front of his TV with his ankles crossed on the coffee table. If his mom were here, she’d push his legs away and tell him off for being such a slob, but he’s perfectly happy alone with a beer in his hand and pizza crumbs all over his stomach, a string of abandoned cheese stuck to his shirt.

He deserves pizza, and he deserves beer, and he deserves shitty, mindless TV that just lets him switch off for the night.

Now that his heart has stop cracking wetly in two and he’s managed to compose himself, things seem a little less dramatic. It’s probably the fuzziness of his brain due to the beer, but, well – sure, Luke knows he’s gay and knows he has feelings for him, but Luke was pretty accepting, right? Luke knows, and Luke doesn’t hate him.

That counts for something. Not a lot – it doesn’t stop him wanting to crawl into a hole at the mere thought of kissing somebody so obviously, painfully straight – but something. At least he’s pretty sure Luke won’t spread the word around town or tell his mom, or Pete, or his own parents. He thinks his secret is safe.

He also thinks that maybe, just maybe, there’s a secret Luke isn’t telling. He doesn’t give it much thought. Luke kissed him back, pressed his lips right back against his, moved his hips in just the right way, but – but Luke twisted it all round to him. Luke was quiet and had no admission of his own. If he’s hiding, or if he was just swept up in the moment, Nick tells himself he doesn’t care. All that matters is that Nick is here, and Nick has beer, and Nick has greasy pizza. Luke is just a distant memory.

He picks the largest slice from the open box on the table and takes a big, satisfying bite. It’s damn good.

Somebody knocks on the door and he drops the slice right onto his lap. He swears.

“I’m coming!” he yells, mopping up the pizza and stuffing most of it in his mouth as he heaves himself off the couch. There’s another knock. “Fuck, alright,” he says through the food, “alright, I’m here, I’m --”

He opens the door with cheese hanging out of his mouth and his fingers damp with grease, and freezes.

Nick didn’t even know it was raining outside, but Luke stands on the doorstep, soaked to the bone and shivering in the wake of the storm. His cheeks are bright red with the cold and he looks straight at Nick with wide, imploring eyes. Nick forgets that he’s supposed to be forgetting him.

“Shit, man, come in, dry off,” he says, stepping back and swallowing the last of the pizza slice. Luke hurries in and shakes like a dog, rain dripping all over the floor and all over Nick. “Are you crazy? You’re not even wearing a jacket.”

Luke sweeps his sodden hair from his face and shivers in his sweatshirt. “It wasn’t raining when I left the farm,” he explains, through chattering teeth. “I didn’t think. I just had to see you.”

Nick’s concern dries up at once. “Oh,” he says, and he remembers kissing the lips moving in front of him, remembers the rejection. “Oh, uh. Sure. What’s up?”

Luke laughs, tiredly. “I didn’t get any more painting done,” he admits, and looks guilty. “I was gonna. I mean, the plan was to get all the walls in that room done today and then do the second coat tomorrow, but- after you left, I just- I just felt guilty. I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about how I treated you.”

“You treated me fine,” Nick says. He crosses his arms and leans against the hallway wall as Luke nudges the front door shut. “I don’t really want to talk about what happened. Not right now. I’m, uh, I’m busy.”

“Busy eating pizza?” Luke asks, sniffing the air. Even his fucking nose twitching makes Nick feel weak. “I’m sorry for rushin’ in like this. I should’ve called you first. I mean, I tried, I did, but your phone is off, and I thought --”

“My phone is off for a reason,” Nick interrupts, shortly. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Luke looks hurt. “I said I was sorry.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean – it’s not that you’ve done anything wrong, okay? I did. I fucked up, and I accept that, and I was hoping to just move on from that for at least tonight. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I do.” Luke crosses his arms, too, mirroring Nick. He looks stubborn. It’s always a bad sign. “I think we owe each other this conversation. There’s no point lettin’ what happened this afternoon pass us by. It wasn’t nothin’.”

Nick wishes he’d never opened the door. Blaring out shitty reality TV was a much preferable sound to Luke’s voice, talking sense that he has no desire to accept. He glares at the floor, and then at Luke, and then shrugs. “Fine. Come in. Help yourself to pizza.”

Luke pads into the living room after him, treading water all over the place. Nick’s glad, again, that his mom and Pete are out of town.

They settle on the couch together, Luke shaking a little and Nick trying to push up against the armrest to stop them from touching. When Luke goes to push his hair away again, his damp arm brushes Nick’s, and it sends a feeling through him that he just can’t stomach right now. He turns the TV up, just to be a brat.

“Come on, Nick, talk to me,” Luke says, loudly, over the advert break. “Don’t shut me out, not now. I’m not here to judge you, I promise.”

“I don’t much care if you are or not,” Nick says, and turns the TV up a couple more notches. “This whole thing is none of your goddamn business.”

“It started being my business when you kissed me, man, so stop pretendin’ I’m askin’ the world of you. I just want to talk, okay? I just want to know what’s goin’ on with you, and- and me. I want to know what _you_ want.”

It doesn’t matter what Nick wants, because it’s something he can never get and he’s accepted that, he accepted it long ago. He shakes his head. “I’m sorry for involving you. I shouldn’t have. It was a dumb mistake, and that’s all there is to say.”

He curls his hands into fists on his lap and wishes the world away.

Luke puts a wet hand on his shoulder, and then to the back of his neck. Nick jumps at the sensation and is about shove him off and tell him to just leave or something, when he catches a glance of Luke, all dishevelled and desperate. It’s pathetic to see. Nick heaves a sigh, and gives in.

He switches the TV off.

“Fine,” he mutters. “We’ll talk.”

Luke smiles at him and dusts his knuckles across Nick’s neck, ducking just under the collar of his shirt. “Thanks,” he says.

“Whatever. I don’t even know what you want me to say.”

Luke looks at him for a second that melts steadily into a minute, and a drop of water runs all the way down Nick’s back. He shudders with it. Luke watches the movement, the smile slipping from his lips, and frowns. “I--” he clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

Luke kisses him with cold lips. Nick melts.

 

 

_**two.** _

 

The money runs out in late July.

Nick spends the last measly ten dollars in his wallet on takeout and finds the door unlocked when he reaches the house. Luke is sat in darkness but for the streetlights outside, staring at the whitewashed wood of the dining table.

“Oh. Hey,” Nick says, setting the Chinese food down and throwing his bag to the floor. “Are you okay?”

Luke doesn’t look up. His hands are on the table, fingers twisting nervously around each other. There’s a defeat in his barely visible silhouette and Nick daren’t put the light on and reveal it.

“Please sit down,” Luke says, in little more than a whisper. His voice is heavy and pulls Nick straight down onto the chair opposite him. “I have some bad news.”

A million awful scenarios flash through Nick’s mind; Pete has had an accident on his latest hunting trip; Luke’s mother has fallen off one of her horses; Nick’s dad has turned up drunk or dead or worse; the damned pipe under the kitchen sink has burst again. He gnaws at his lower lip and waits for Luke, who’s eyes are unmoving.

“I’m so sorry,” is all he says, fingers curling into fists on the table. “I’m so sorry, Nick, but all the money has gone. Every dollar. The account is empty and I went to the bank and they said- they, they can’t lend us any more until we start repayin’ our loan.”

Nick blanches. “All of it? Both our savings?”

“Both our savings,” Luke confirms, “and the loan, too. We’re flat broke.”

The dining room seems both too large and too small around them. Nick sucks in a breath and crosses his arms tightly across his chest as though that’ll help. He’s glad Luke can’t see him clearly in the darkness and so misses his surly look, because he can’t help the bitterness, can’t help the disappointment in himself and the bank and this house and his best friend, too. If only he’d stood up to him. If only he’d pulled out of this investment while he had the chance.

“I told my parents before you,” Luke confesses, quietly. He’s still staring at his hands. “I’m sorry, I know that’s wrong. They were there when I got the call from the bank.”

“What did they say? Were they pissed?”

“No,” Luke laughs, and it’s a hollow, sad little sound. “That’s the funniest part. They told me they believed in me. They said this place has done me good, given me somethin’ to work for. They offered to – fuck, they’re crazy, but they offered to sell of the farm to raise some money. They said they could downsize and give the rest of it to us so we could carry on developing this- this piece of shit house.”

Nick furrows his brow. “You didn’t take it, did you? We still have to make a profit when we sell and I don’t think pumping more money into this is gonna fix that.”

“Of course I didn’t take it. My folks love that farm, I’m not gonna take that away from them because I’m a failure. I just don’t get why they’d do that. Offering me some money is one thing, but their whole livelihood? They can’t believe in me that much.”

“Maybe they do,” Nick offers, but he knows it’s a lie. “People don’t want you to be unhappy, Luke. They were probably just trying to protect you from failing.”

Luke finally looks up. He catches a stray beam of light from the streetlamps outside. There are great shadows under his eyes, and a little red, too. Nick wonders if he’s actually been crying. “I know people don’t, you especially. That’s why you agreed to buy this house in the first place. You didn’t want it, I know that. I always knew that. You agreed so I wouldn’t have to try this alone.”

“I—Luke, I never --”

“Thanks,” Luke interrupts him. He reaches a hand across the table and then pauses, clearly hesitant. “I- thank you. I’m real glad you made that decision. We had fun, right?”

Luke doesn’t need to say sorry for the lost money, and Nick would never expect him to. He knows that apology is in his every glance and every gesture. Nick smiles. “We did. Loads of it.”

He can almost see the route of Luke’s relief as he sees Nick’s smile. He doesn’t smile back but his shoulders slump down and his chin comes up and he seems just a little stronger. “You should hit me right now. I’d deserve it.”

“Probably,” Nick agrees, “but I don’t fancy messin’ up that pretty face of yours.”

Luke finally does smile at that, snorting incredulously. “You’re an asshole.”

“I’m not gonna disagree,” Nick shrugs. They smile at each other for a while, tiredly, before Nick runs his hands over his face and through his hair. “What are we gonna do, man?”

“I don’t know,” Luke admits, quietly. “Any ideas?”

“Well, we’re almost done with doing this place up, right? There’s only the downstairs bathroom to refit and a bit of painting. We can skip buying furniture, right? When we sell, we’re gonna sell it for more than we paid for, right?”

“Right,” Luke confirms, frowning.

“So we pay the bank back for what we owe and split the rest.”

“I didn’t- I mean, the best we can hope for is breaking even, and that’s only if we sell before our interest on the loan gets too high, and if we sell for asking price. We’re – we shouldn’t have spent that much. We were so over budget. We’re definitely not getting our savings back, and- well, I don’t think we’ll find another bank to loan us that sort of money again. We’re never gonna be able to do this again, with another house.”

Luke’s pretty visions of business are gone, that much is evident. Nick drops his head against the table. He’s just lost thousands of dollars and Luke’s disappointment is too much to look at right now.

His mom is going to be so disappointed in him. Pete is going to have a field day.

“I don’t know what went wrong,” Luke mumbles.

“We were too optimistic,” Nick replies, half lifting his head. He means _you_. Luke was too optimistic, and Nick was too eager to oblige him. They make a goddamn shitty team. “We, I dunno, we started too big.”

“Yeah.” Luke laughs, weakly, and leans right back on his chair so he’s staring at the half-painted ceiling. “Fuck.”

The situation with the house, Nick knows, is not all that bad. Once they find a buyer at least they’ll be able to pay off their loan and get the hell out of this ill-fated business. It’s the sting, though, of losing all the payoff from his overtime at the various stores around town that really has winded him. It was money he earned without anyone’s help, money he saved meticulously at the hope of earning enough to get out of his mom’s house, money that was supposed to be his way forward.

It’s gone, all gone, over budgeted and stretched over two floors of a house he’s grown to hate all over again in the space of ten minutes.

He almost had enough to put a down payment on a house of his own. He was almost free from his dad’s sporadic visits, from the sounds of his mom crying whenever she went months without any contact from her husband, from the overbearing questions from his uncle who is always so intent on making Nick into a real man who he can actually be proud of.

Sure, he’s managed to indulge Luke for the better part of a year, and sure, Luke spent three hours last night exploring the inside of his mouth with his tongue, and sure, Nick woke up this morning and felt happier than he had in years, but that’s irrelevant. Without the prospect of moving out, what hope does he possibly have?

He sits up, slumps back in his seat. Luke is still tilting back on his chair, his eyes closed. Nick thinks of what his mom is going to say to him.

The thought of her dark, concerned eyes – so unlike his own – makes him start, slamming his hand down on the table. He remembers that summer day stood in the yard, watching the children play and the adults work, and he remembers how she’d tried to push him in a direction he wasn’t even willing to consider.

Luke jumps at the thump of skin on wood, chair righting itself with a bang. “Nick?” he asks, eyes wide. “What? What’s wrong?”

Nick remembers his mom’s words. _Live in it_ , she’d said, before they’d had any notion of money troubles. She’d been so sure they’d get on. She’d been so sure everything would work out.

“Why don’t we talk to the bank?” Nick asks, carefully. “We could try to, I don’t know, turn our debt into a mortgage. Your dad knows the bank manager. It might be possible.”

Luke blinks. “A mortgage? Uh, why?”

He looks as sceptical as he always does when Nick tries to suggest something. It’s not Luke’s best trait; he seems to take a certain pleasure in always having the best ideas, and in Nick always having the worst. He resists scowling and shutting up, and instead spreads his hands, as earnestly as he can.

“Why don’t we just keep this place?”

“Um. Keep it? As in- as in rent it out?”

Luke is being deliberately obtuse and Nick allows himself one tiny glare. “No,” he sighs. “No, as in- as in, let’s keep it and use it. We could, I don’t know. Live here. Be, uh, be housemates, you know?”

It would be too much to ask for them to move in together as more than that, especially so soon. Even Nick’s not sure he’d be ready for such a label, not when Luke has looked hesitant after the few kisses they’ve so far shared. He’s looking at him now in much the same way – Nick can tell by the tenseness of his jaw, bathed in only half-light, and by the way he’s sitting up straight again.

“Are you being serious?” Luke asks. He swallows. “You’d want to move in with me?”

“It’s not- I don’t mean it like --” He feels prickly all over and even the weight of the loss of his money can’t distract him. “No. I mean, yeah. I mean – that money I invested in this idea of yours? I was gonna move out with that. I’m never gonna be able to afford to buy a place now, not for at least a few more years.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that you were plannin’ to … if I’d have known, I never would have asked you to risk it all. I’m sorry. Again.”

“I know you are,” and it’s not forgiveness, but his next words are. “So how about it? We talk to the bank. We get a mortgage sorted, and we pay this loan back over time. We get out of our parents’ places and we get proper jobs and we --”

“We live together,” Luke finishes for him.

“Well. Yeah. Unless --”

“I’m in,” Luke says, and his hesitation is gone. “Let’s try it.”

Nick stands up and walks around the table and Luke half-stands to meet him. His hand slips around the back of Luke’s neck, fingers running through his hair, and Luke slips a hand up the back of his shirt to lie against his skin. When they kiss, the house swarms around them, and this time it’s a comfort.

 

 

_**one.** _

 

Their first official day in their new house proves to be their last.

It’s after a week or so of packing and unpacking, and after a month or so of Luke’s dad calling in old favours with the bank and finally getting them a mortgage negotiated, and it’s after a morning of Nick worrying that Luke hasn’t kissed him in days and that maybe the novelty has worn off for his best friend.

To name what they have would maybe be too much for him; they’ve kissed and they’ve jerked each other off, just the once, and sometimes Nick thinks that Luke’s falling for him even just a little – but then Luke will remember himself and pull back and pretend everything is the same as it’s always been. With the official move and the meetings at the bank, Luke has had every excuse to put off naming things, to put off considering what’s actually happening between them.

Nick didn’t think he’d mind so much. He’s had years of wanting, years to get used to the pining, but now he’s had a little, he wants a definite. He wants something constant.

He’s in the dining room with a row of nails between his teeth and a hammer in his hand, wondering where to hang all of the pictures Luke’s parents were so insistent they had to take with them. There’s a couple of baby pictures and a few family vacation shots, but most importantly there’s one that Jean managed to dig up from when they were sixteen and sunned up and posing by the woods together. Luke has an arm around Nick’s shoulder, and Nick is laughing. Nick decides it should take pride of place in the centre of the wall.

Luke comes in just as Nick’s got the picture up. He comes to stand by him, raising an eyebrow. “My mom actually let go of this one? It’s her favourite.”

“It’s a good picture,” Nick says, fondly. “I think it’s my favourite too.”

“I had awful hair back then,” Luke says, after they’ve stood there examining it for a while, taking in the glint in Luke’s eye and the way Nick is leaning into him. “No wonder no girl would ever talk to me.”

The mention of girls makes them both wince. When Jean had been leafing through the old photos in search of some to give to Nick, she’d pulled out a couple of Luke with one of his ex-girlfriend’s. Nick had lied and said it had been a bad breakup and Luke wouldn’t want to look at her face on his wall. He didn’t add that looking at her himself made him want to tear the photo into tiny little pieces.

Nick sets the hammer down and Luke covers his fingers with his own, just for a moment, just to give them a quick and comforting squeeze. The corner of Nick’s mouth twitches upward, and then Luke is gone into the other room, whistling to himself.

Nick’s fingers tingle and he scratches the back of his neck with them. It doesn’t help; the flush spreads all over, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that Luke’s dated girls, and may one day date girls again. All that matters is that they’re here now, after a year of trouble and hard work and long, long nights with even longer days – they’re here, and they’re closer than ever, and they have all the time in the world to get more comfortable with each other.

There’s no rush to label it, if Luke’s not ready for that. There’s no rush to tell anybody. They can just _go_ with it. They have their whole lives to work on this.

Nick gives into the swell of warmth deep in his belly, and abandons the pictures.

It’s when he finds Luke stacking plates in the kitchen cupboard and he comes up behind him with every intention of kissing him that there’s a banging at the door.

Luke turns and starts and smashes a plate in surprise. Nick stands there like a guilty toddler.

“Sorry,” he says, at once, “I just really want to kiss you.”

“Someone’s here,” Luke says, going red, but licking his lips. “I- just give me a second, I’ll get rid of them.”

Nick starts kicking at the shards of porcelain as Luke gets the door, trying to get them in a pile to sweep up. He bends to pick up the largest piece.

“What the fuck?” he hears Luke yell, and then Nick’s swearing himself, dropping the shard and bringing his bleeding finger to his lips. “Nick, help- fuck, get off me!”

Nick forgets his bleeding finger and jumps to his feet, stumbles in a run all the way through the room to Luke, who’s pushing off –

“Mrs Harris?” Nick asks, blinking in the doorway at the sight of their new, elderly neighbour trying to rip a great chunk out of the struggling Luke. “What the fuck?”

Luke shoves her off, sending her sprawling out across the driveway. Nick gets a brief good look at her, seeing the deathly pallor of her skin and her bloodshot, swollen eyes. A chill goes down his spine as those eyes meet his, and he realises how empty they are.

Luke slams the door. He’s breathing all deep and heavy and he turns to Nick with wide eyes. “What the fuck,” he confirms.

The banging at the door starts up again, Mrs Harris groaning and scratching and snarling, and Luke takes an automatic step back from it. Nick comes to his side, at once, readjusting his cap and shaking his head.

“Should I call the police?” he asks. “She looked fucking dead on her feet. She must of lost her goddamn mind.”

“You think?” Luke asks, glaring at him. He runs his hands down himself, straightening out his shirt. “I only saw her this morning. She seemed fine then.”

“Maybe she --” Nick hears something in the distance, and he freezes. “Wait. Listen. Listen properly.”

Over the sounds of Mrs Harris comes a slow, steady cacophony of noise that make Nick inch closer to Luke, make the pit of his belly come alive with worry. There’s a siren somewhere out there, and screams, too – and, in the far distance, a gunshot, and then another, and another, and another.

Luke stares at him. He stares right back.

“What the fuck?” Nick asks, again, as Mrs Harris moves to the window and manages to smash right through.

 

\---

 

 

_**zero.** _

 

One night, days after leaving Carver’s camp, Luke ducks into Nick’s tent and kisses him.

“We can’t let anyone know,” Luke says, and Nick mourns – for a moment – the lack of time they’ve had. They were just coming into their own when the world turned upside down. Now, he’ll never know what might have been had Luke ever truly learned to love him. “I’m sorry, Nick. We just can’t.”

“I understand,” Nick says, and he doesn’t. “I know.”

Luke smiles. The night – so endless – brightens.


End file.
